By default, I am a travel photographer. I work on a combination of commissions and personal projects that take me around the world.

We live in a homogenized world, where it’s hard to get excited when everything is slick and professional. The interesting things are the dull things.

Personally, I don’t take holidays; I go on trips. My idea of relaxing is taking a trip that isn’t commissioned. I’ll work just as hard, but without that nagging pressure of fulfilling a commission. Now...

Choosing sepia is all to do with trying to make the image look romantic and idealistic. It’s sort of a soft version of propaganda.

Dictators are interesting, no?

Photographers never want to talk about the fact that they may well be in decline. It’s the greatest taboo subject of all.

I would drown in objects if I didn’t have the ability to photograph them.

I like to keep in touch with younger photographers. It’s important that a younger generation comes up and questions the assumptions made by old farts like me.

When I visited Vietnam for Oxfam, the thing that really struck me was how the local farmers had to prepare to evacuate or climb to their mezzanines with their valuable family possessions.

I am a big fan of Jim Jarmusch, and I do love big screen documentaries.

For those aspiring to make a living from travel photography, it’s a sad fact that the boring shots are the shots that are going to make you money.

Places change all the time, and the type of people who live there change.

My black-and-white work is more of a celebration, and the color work became more of a critique of society.

Over the years, I have perfected the art of dancing and photographing at the same time: it’s a great double act. If you’re dancing, you are joining in. If you stand there rigid, you are...

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.

I am away so much, so I rarely see live TV, but I use iPlayer to catch programmes.

Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.

I don’t like being flattered. It doesn’t suit my English sensibilities. Remember, we are the great country of understatement.

The idea of England in decline is very attractive.

I just go out and try to make sense of the world around me.

When someone says to you, ‘Oh, I don’t take a good picture,’ what they mean is they haven’t come to terms with how they look. They take a fine picture, it’s just that their image...

You can easily take photographs at a wedding – no one would question it. But funerals are different.

I am not a huge follower of music and tend to like one CD and play it to death, usually when I am washing up.

Wealthy people have not disappeared, they are just not so willing to show off their wealth.

I have been photographing people dancing for 20 or 30 years now, and I think I will eventually do a book of dancing photos.

The trouble with Hollywood films is that they always have a pleasant ending.

Most of the photographs people take with their cameraphones are of little value in terms of documentary.

As we travel around Britain, I am convinced most of us cannot really appreciate what we are seeing. We take too much for granted, because it is all so familiar.

I avoid Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and if I need to communicate with someone, I email direct.

I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the ’80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.

The thing about tourism is that the reality of a place is quite different from the mythology of it.

I never think of photographs as being individual. Always as a group.

TV-makers usually don’t know much about photography.

Of course, New Brighton is very shabby, very rundown, but people still go there because it’s the place where you take kids out on a Sunday.

I would urge everyone to start looking at the world in a different way. Spend some time looking at everyday objects, at their design, their shape, their individual characteristics. Think ahead and imagine their significance.

Margaret Thatcher was very good for the arts in so far as it gave people a real focus for something to be against.

I do read many of the photography magazines from the U.K. and abroad.

Criticism is hypocrisy; society is hypocrisy. I’m a tourist. I’m a consumer. I do the things that I photograph and can be criticized of.

I photograph people as I find them. But people have issues about how they look.

When I fly British Airways, I can’t help but read the free Daily Mail, which makes me glad I am leaving the country.

The knack is to find your own inspiration and take it on a journey to create work that is personal and revealing.

Photography is, by its nature, exploitative. It’s whether you use this process with a sense of responsibility or not. I feel that I do so. My conscience is clear.

Most of us, when we go out with a camera in our own country, try to find exotic subject matter to photograph.

I get up early and open my emails, write cheques, and answer the phone; whatever needs to be done.

When I am in London, all I do is mix with other people in the arts.

I photograph wealth.

You can’t shoot in sepia, so converting into black and white and then into brown makes everything feel less real.

There are 65 to 70 photography galleries in New York alone. In the U.K., there are no more than five, and they’re all in London.

I am kept awake by the list of possibilities for shooting more photos and deciding what I must prioritise next.

Sometimes you feel uncomfortable taking a photograph, but that’s all part of the job.