I'm just interested in what makes a photograph.

I'm just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven't had the best breaks in society. I'm always on their side. I find them more human, maybe. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence.

When you’re working on a film, it’s almost like photographing paintings at a museum. You’re photographing somebody else’s world. I just try and interpret it and make it real, and make it what the actors are about, what the director is about, and what the film is about.

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.

I’m a documentary photographer. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be; that’s where my heart and soul is.

Sometimes I work on film sets. I’ve done this for 40 years. I always wanted to photograph on the set of an Ingmar Bergman film. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity.

Nowadays shots are created in post-production, on computers. It’s not really photography.

I’m interested in reality, and I’m interested in survival. I’m interested in people who aren’t the lucky ones, who maybe have a tougher time surviving, and telling their story.

If I hadn’t become a photographer, I would have loved to become a doctor. I would have loved to have done something that actually helped people and changed their lives.

Everyone asks me how I get my subjects to open up to me. There’s no formula to it. It’s just a matter of who you are and how you talk to people – of being yourself.