I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war.
But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there - to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on - to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference - to protest and by the strength of that protest to make others protest.
There is a job to be doneto record the truth. I want to wake people up!
I don't believe there's any such thing as objective reality. It's only reality as we experience it.
I want my work to become part of our visual history, to enter our collective memory and our collective conscience. I hope it will serve to remind us that history's deepest tragedies concern not the great protagonists who set events in motion but the countless ordinary people who are caught up in those events and torn apart by their remorseless fury. I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
[Photography] puts a human face on issues which, from afar, can appear abstract or ideological or monumental in their global impact.
I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing.
I used to call myself a war photographer. Now I consider myself as an antiwar photographer.
I want my pictures to cut through political abstractions... and make a connection on a human level.
If there is something occurring that is so bad that it could be considered a crime against humanity, it has to be transmitted with anguish, with pain, and create an impact in people - upset them, shake them up, wake them out of their everyday routine.
When the truth is spoken, it doesn't need to be adorned. It just needs to be simply stated, and often it only needs to be said once.
It is very hard to say where you're going until you get there. That kind of thing is based very much on instinct. As a photographer, one of the most important lessons I have learnt is that you have to learn to listen to and trust your own instinct. It has helped to guide me - this far at least.
The greatest statesmen, philosophers, humanitarians ... have not been able to put an end to war. Why place that demand on photography?
Many people in this world do jobs that are dangerous and where their life is at risk and they feel that there is some kind of value to their job I guess that's how I feel about what I do. There is a social function to documentary photography that is very important and it requires people to take risks.
Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of photography?
I want to record history through the destiny of individuals who often belong to the least wealthy classes. I do not want to show war in general, nor history with a capital H, but rather the tragedy of a single man, of a family.
Photojournalists know the horrors of war can only be exposed at close range. Kodak Film.
I dont think tragic situations are necessarily devoid of beauty.
If Im feeling outraged, grief, disbelief, frustration, sympathy, that gets channeled through me and into my pictures and hopefully transmitted to the viewer.
I began after college, about 1972. I began to teach myself photography. I went to work for a local newspaper for four years as a kind of basic training.
Photography can be perceived as the opposite of war.
None of the editors I've worked with have ever asked me to pull my punches. They've never asked me to give them anything other than my own interpretation of events.
