A good print is really essential. I want to take strong documentary photographs that are as good technically as any of the best technical photographs, and as creative as any of the best fine-art photographs. [...] I don't want to just be a photo essayist; I'm more interested in single images...ones that I feel are good enough to stand on their own.

Im just interested in what makes a photograph.

The subject gives you the best idea of how to make a photograph. So I just wait for something to happen.

I respect newspapers but the reality is that magazine "photojournalism" is finished. They want illustrations, Photoshopped pictures of movie stars.

I’m trying to please myself; certainly that’s a big criterion... though in a sense, I don’t take images just for myself. I take images that I think other people will want to see. I don’t take pictures to put in a box and hide them. I want as many people to see them as possible.

I want my photographs not only to be real but to portray the essence of my subjects also. In order to do that, you have to be patient.

I go into every story thinking I'm going to fail. I think about that all the time - I think it's going to be terrible. Every story is like the first I've ever done.