ITCHY FEET Growing up in a village near Hoorn, in Holland, I had this urge to go to places that were far away. I've always been intrigued by places with lots of islands, such as Indonesia and the Philippines - the romantic view of the traveller. Backpacking was relatively new [when I started travelling, there were] no Lonely Planet guides - and you could visit Afghanistan over land without a problem. I only took happy snaps on these trips. Then, in 1984, I decided to become a freelance photographer.
I worked for an NGO called Novib. It's now part of the Oxfam family. I had spent half a year in Sudan and they needed photographs of their projects there. It started with the news about the hunger in Ethiopia, Eritrea and north Sudan. Bob Geldof started his Live Aid and all that. Because of the whole noise about the famine, photographers and TV crews started coming in but they were only in the big refugee camps. It was extremely helpful that I had travel experience. In the mid-1980s, going to Sudan was unheard of, [although] I suppose there were a few eccentric Brits there who had wanted to go in the footsteps of [Lord] Kitchener.
Soon travelling became addictive. I went to northern Pakistan in the mid-80s to photograph the mujahideen massing with their horses and supplies - even children's school books - to go to northern Afghanistan for the winter after the Russian invasion. I later went to Kandahar.
ALTERED IMAGES I teach photojournalism at the University of Hong Kong. It's interesting to see how many students here [want to become] photojournalists at a time when the job is really changing. These days you can type 'Afghanistan' on the computer and source thousands of photos. Before, the wires would do the grind stuff but it wasn't enough. So [publications] would send you [there]. These days they hire someone locally or stick to photos from the wires services.
STREET SMART Hong Kong lends itself to street-scene photography, which I love. A couple of years ago, I had an exhibition on Graham Street and have photographed other old neighbourhoods including where I live, in Sheung Wan. There's something fascinating about street scenes; how suddenly they come together. You wait and then it is there, just right.
REMEMBERING HU I have been organising an exhibition on Dutch photographer Hu [Hubert] Van Es, at the [Foreign Correspondents' Club]. In 1975, [he took the photograph during the fall of Saigon, at the end of the Vietnam war, of] people on top of [a building used by the CIA] desperately trying to evacuate on a helicopter.
He joined the club in 1969 and was a stalwart member. He died last year. We became friends - both Dutch, both photographers. I was, I suppose, half a generation younger than him, so knew enough about what he had done but I was too young for the Vietnam war and I think he found that refreshing.