I'm always scared. I'm always scared. It doesn't matter. I'm even scared when there's a small
riot going on. I don't think it's... I have absolutely no inhibitions to say that. I think
it's actually good. I think it's more dangerous not to be scared than to have a reason. I'm not
saying panic. I mean panic is wrong. I won't panic. But I will allow this amount of fear because I
know it puts me on the defense. It puts me on kiviv, on caution. It's good. It makes you analyze,
it makes you work. It actually helps you work and analyze quicker. Pretty well all my career,
I have spent the majority of my time working in not just places of conflict but certainly in
places of conflict but under what you would call tense traumatic situations. And I'm not really
sure why I was drawn in that direction. I don't think anything else really matters quite as much
and I can't think why I'd really want to photograph anything else at this point in my life other than
you know photographing my friends and family of course for pleasure. But if I'm working and I take
my work very seriously then I want to talk about things with my photography that are really important
to me and to the people in the photographs. So that's really I think why I've continued to work
in these places and haven't moved in another direction. I just don't think I could do it. I'd
have to find another job. When you're in a war situation with someone, when you're in danger it's
not it doesn't have to be just a war situation but in danger the relationship becomes very strong
definitely and a lot of people and friends and photographers you know especially in the last
five years of Intifada I don't travel by myself to the West Bank. It's way too dangerous. So I always
have someone with me. It will be a photographer or a cameraman or we travel in pairs because you
know it's too dangerous to travel by yourself. So you definitely know after so long you know we
have very tight and deep relationships with colleagues. One good thing for us in Reuters in
the group of friends that I'm in is that we talk a lot while we're working somewhere especially
when it's harsh conditions. So the moment you get back from everything you've already sort of dealt
with most of the the horrors that you've seen. Yeah it does. It does create a bond but I don't
know whether you also don't protect yourself and kind of keep a bit of a distance. I'm not
somebody who has like I'll have a few select friends and that creates a real bond especially
if you cover war type situations but for the rest it's odd I think you're a bit more careful in
getting too close to people. I don't do this kind of work and I don't go to these places just
because it's a job. It's a belief you know it's a significant part of my life and if I stop doing
that I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't be the father that I am. I wouldn't be the husband that
I am. I wouldn't be the man that I am. So it's inconceivable for me to stop doing what I do and
stop going to the places that I choose to go to to work but certainly when I'm in wars I've never
really been the kind of photographer who is running around chasing soldiers. I've done it once or
twice and I did it recently in Iraq but it's really not my modus operandi. I'm more involved with
the civilian populations generally. If things touch you, if you come back upset from an assignment
etc. I think I always look even if it hurts or even if stories are difficult they matter. I mean a
lot of the things I do is out of interest, out of curiosity what happens to people when things go
really bad and when everything falls away, when the structure of society collapses what happens
to people and there's I think there's a lot of satisfaction in even if things go really bad you
still meet human beings and that they try and cope with whatever they do and you see and it's
important for me to to try and illustrate that in images or just for me to absorb it and for
that matter I think most of the assignments make sense for me. From my perspective I cannot judge
I don't want to influence my personal ideas or theories on people seeing my work you know I have
to come clean and to document you know this is this is what I'm there for to tell the story and to
tell the truth and you know by going there and spending time and knowing the people you really
can tell the story and you know what for me I think it's the only way to do it.
