My advice to photographers is to get out there in the field and take photographs but also if they are students to finish their course, learn as many languages as possible, go to movies, read books visit museums, broaden your mind.

My grandfather killed himself falling off the dike in Ostend while photographing my two cousins. This can happen so easily when looking through a lens: for a split second nothing else exists outside the frame.

A photograph is not necessarily a lie, but it isn't the truth either. It's more like a fleeting, subjective impression.

Photography came as a substitute. I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult; a camera in hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere, a witness, but not an actor.

I was very ill at ease with people in social situations, and I realized that if I photographed I wouldn't have to chat.

I feel concerned by what happens in the world.... I don't want to merely document; I want to know why a certain thing disturbs or attracts me and how a situation can affect the person involved.

What I like so much about photography is precisely the moment that cannot be anticipated; one must be constantly on the alert, ready to acclaim the unexpected.