“My work doesn’t speak about individuals (it’s not portraiture in the traditional sense), it tries to speak about life in general in cities of the West – which is where I live and what I understand.”

I like to be flexible in the way I take pictures. I do not use a tripod, and I move around in the crowd, of which I am myself part….

I don’t see myself as a documentary photographer. I am more drawn to the image itself, rather than to the description of a scene. And, anyway, every image only halfway represents reality, whereas the other half is rather, more or less, fulfilling our imagination.

I try to preserve the dynamics of the street, and my way of using the camera tries to approximate as much as possible the way we see: focusing on details, opening up to wider angles, and composing all these very short, fragmented impressions into a larger mental picture.

At the core of my work there is this eternal back-and-forth between being confined to one’s own individuality and that longing to be part of the other, the outside world: the impossibility of ever being able to get beneath another person’s skin.

I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat.

The strategy for peace-building in Afghanistan is economic aid, reconstruction, international security forces. On those lines, the U.S. has been extremely slow. And it has even blocked expanding security forces from Kabul to other cities.

Already, Islamic State has broad support in many cities there. And when they get there, it will once again come as a great surprise to everybody.

Some Pakistanis fought for the Taliban. Pakistani extremist groups provided infrastructural support to Al Qaeda. There was a coming and going of Al Qaeda militants and leaders between Afghanistan and Pakistan for several years.

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.

Lovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.

What would it mean to live in a city whose people were changing each other’s despair into hope?– You yourself must change it.

When I get back into the city, it doesn’t matter where you plop me down, I have my friends around me and I feel so blessed.