I'm one of those aimless baby boomers. I couldn't really figure out what I was going to be. I graduated from Humboldt State (a California state college) with a B.A. in Asian Studies. My one real skill was taking pictures and being pig-headed enough to think I could make a living at it. I've been at it for 21 years, and I think just now I'm beginning to understand what a good photo is - although my idea of what photojournalism should be hasn't changed much over the years. It's just gotten more out of step.

I started my career in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1974, documenting what turned out to be the last three months of the epic United Mineworker's strike. I've pretty much stuck with social/economic themes since. The photographer who first and foremost has had an influence on me is Don McCullin. After that, in no particular order are Bill Brandt, August Sander and Robert Frank, Lewis Hine.

Since then, I've been very lucky, and the camera has taken me to much of the world: Africa, East, South and South-East Asia, Europe and Central America as well as most of the United States. Most of my clients are in England: the Independent Saturday Magazine, Independent Review on Sunday, The London Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer and the Sunday Telegraph. Other clients include: TEMPO, Stern, Die Ziet in Europe and the Los Angeles Times Focus Magazine among others. My work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Hanoi, Guadalajara and London.

Like most working photojournalists, when I've started with an extended project, the stories have been short looks at issues and events in the news, from the fall of Marcos in the Philippines and the election of father Aristide in Haiti, to the reemergence of TB in the United States.

In 1993 it seemed time to return to working as I had started. I began a project on the criminal justice system in the United States. Almost two years later it is near complete - made up, so far, of three parts: the work of a homicide detective team, life in and around a police station, and the job of the a public defender/the courts. My next project will be worked on in the same way, whenever there is time, with the final results sold as finished stories.