There was a time, right up until the end of the Second World War and beyond, when white people in Europe thought that they basically owned the world and that everybody else was a sort of servant, or a curiosity, or whatever. And that informed 99 percent of the photographic practice that was done. Without being able to address that, I felt I would have failed in my attempt to explain what the urge to document is.

Photography for me has been tremendously good, because I'm not a very sociable person. I'm happy reading or sitting in the library or going for walks. So photography has brought me in contact with people and made me understand people in a way that I probably wouldn't have done if I hadn't been a photographer. And so I'm grateful for that, really.

As humans, we need to question all these notions. What does freedom mean for us? What are our responsibilities? It takes one-250th of a second to take a photograph. So I have the whole of the rest of that second - and of that day - to think.

I love photographing. I love the experience of being around all the things that surround you when you go out to do work.

Photography was increasingly being seen as something outside the art world. As a sort of illustration. They just fired the director of photography at the Sunday Times Magazine - that's where everyone went with their photo essays in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. It was the place to get published. It is an issue. And I feel it. There's no budget. The budget-holders are very often people who've been to the professional colleges where art is not taught. So art as a part of education is something that's missing - since Thatcher's day, anyway.

There is a danger in our modern practice of using embedded journalism. As there is less and less money available for journalism to uphold its independence, there is a temptation for people to take short cuts. If this army or that army or this corporation is willing to pay for your flight or your accommodation, then it's much more difficult to tell what the real story might be. I do have a concern about that.

I Love photographing. It’s that simple.