I love photography. I love the imagery. I love what I do.
Photography belongs to a fraternity of its own. I was young and enthusiastic and wanted to take good pictures to show the other photographers. That, and the professional pride of convincing an editor that I was the man to go somewhere, were the most important things to me.
There's nothing I don't know about war. The stench of it. But I say that without any pride. War is a terrible thing. My hope is that you'll get that through looking at one of my pictures.
I've always thought photography is not so much of an art form but a way of communicating and passing on information.
I was dyslexic and uneducated and left school at 14. I grew up in Finsbury Park, which was a pretty bad place where you had to fight and be beaten. It was just a constant roundabout of violence.
I've spent most of my life embracing violence in wars and revolutions. Even a famine is a form of violence. Because I photograph people in peril, people in pain, people being executed in front of me, I find it very difficult to get my head around the art narrative of photography.
Many people misunderstand me - I'm quite happy to be called a photographer. All of a sudden, the art world has caught up with photography, and they are trying to hijack us.
I have a store full of thousands and thousands of images in my brain. I've got this terrible feeling I'm like some abattoir boss: I know death; I know the cut pieces of the human body.
Many people send me letters in England saying, 'I want to be a war photographer,' and I say, go out into the community that you live in. There's wars going on out there; you don't have to go halfway around the world on an airplane where there are bombs and shells. There are social wars that are worthwhile.
I have a dark room, and I still process film, but digital photography can be a totally lying kind of experience; you can move anything you want... the whole thing can't be trusted, really.
In my photography, I always lean towards the underprivileged because that's where I came from. When I went to the wars, I attempted to go and stand by those who were being trodden on. By that, I mean people like the Palestinians. When I go to India, I see really the poorest people, and I tend to be drawn to them.
I think media has lost its way. We must recognize that the proprietors of these organizations have put on a form of censorship. Basically, they're more interested in celebrity, narcissism, rich people, good-looking people, and successful sportsmen.