The changes taking place in this part of Europe are enormous and very rapid. One world is disappearing. I am trying to photograph what's left. I have always been drawn to what is ending, what will soon no longer exist.

Sometimes I photograph without looking through the viewfinder. I have mastered that well enough, it is almost as if I were looking through it.

For me what photographers say about their photos doesn’t have any importance. For me it is just enough to look at the pictures. Many times - for the boring pictures - people have to say so many things about them to show you there is something to them when many times there is nothing.

I am not interested in repetition. I don't want to reach the point from where I wouldn't know how to go further. It's good to set limits for oneself, but there comes a moment when we must destroy what we have constructed.

I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.

When I first started to take photographs in Czechoslovakia, I met this old gentleman, this old photographer, who told me a few practical things. One of the things he said was, "Josef, a photographer works on the subject, but the subject works on the photographer."

If I am dissatisfied, it's simply because good photos are few and far between. A good photo is a miracle.