For my 50th birthday, my cousin Helmut gave me the most profound, beautiful, and striking present. He made books out of my dad's slide photographs, which were stored and forgotten. Looking at those books made me cry.

I see through my eyes; the camera is just a machine to record it for me.

I try and photograph people as they are. I do not want to hide anything. I want to bring across a personality, a humanity. It is not a case of model A or model B against a white background. I am interested in the person.

I like people with conviction, who are in control of themselves. I'm not interested in working with a designer who hires a creative director.

Most fashion photography is done by gay people finding women sexy - which is sort of not sexy at all, at least to a heterosexual man.

I just really like women, and I like men, and I like children, and I like eating, and I like doing everything.