If you want to connect with people who are in distress and great grief and scared, you need to do it in a certain way. I move kind of slow. I talk kind of slow. I let them know that I respect them.

I began after college, about 1972. I began to teach myself photography. I went to work for a local newspaper for four years as a kind of basic training.

I want my pictures to cut through political abstractions... and make a connection on a human level.

There is a job to be doneto record the truth. I want to wake people up!

I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.

Unfortunately, the world continues, history continues to produce tragedies. And it is very important that they be documented in a humane way, in a compelling way.

I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing.