I'm satisfied with a photograph immediately after taking it. But it takes a lot of photographs to get the right one - and you know there's only one. The trouble with taking photographs is there's always another way of doing it. Sure nowadays you can manipulate them electronically but it's not the same as taking it.

I'm not sure if my best photograph is to come. Something may happen and I'll get that image that will capture a moment. I mean the great iconic photographs… you're lucky ever to get one of the great iconic photographs - there's Che Guevara taken by the Cuban photographer or the one of landing on the moon - they're so rare.

The Iron Lady as she cracked
Margaret Thatcher was leaving Downing Street for the last time. She'd been ousted as John Major had been elected as Prime Minister by the Tory Party and she was leaving. She came outside the front door of 10 Downing Street and made her speech. I was across the road, along with 300 other photographers and camera crews. I took a few photographs along with everyone else but I kept looking for something else.

I looked at her husband Dennis, no emotion from him. I looked at her son, nothing happening there. I glanced up the street and there in the press office window were the girls in the press office, weeping, handkerchiefs at face, really having a tough time. Mrs Thatcher finished her speech, as she would deliver it, Iron Lady style, she turned to go to her car and just glanced up at the girls in tears. I could see by her face that she was affected deeply by it, but her son was holding open the car door and she climbed into it.

The only chance of getting a photograph was for me to drop off my ladder and try to do something from ground level of her inside the car. The minute the door shut the car started to move off, but luckily Mrs Thatcher leaned forward, looked out to see what was happening and as she did so she was biting her lip and reddened eyes and a tear in each eye. So the Iron Lady had cracked at last. That's the photograph I got.

Princess Diana
I was lucky enough to photograph the Princess of Wales over a fairly prolonged time. She was in herself the best model that this century has thrown up. She had irregular features, she had a big nose, her smile was maybe a bit too wide but put it all together with her colouring, she was one of the most beautiful woman that anyone's ever photographed.

She was on the front page of almost every magazine in the world at some time or other. She was photographed by some of the world's greatest photographers and some of the world's lousiest photographers and I reckon everyone of them thought they had a great picture of her. She just put together a facial package that couldn't be beaten.

Danny DeVito
Occasionally, you'll bump into a celebrity who's having a game with you and I was called to photograph Danny DeVito on a Saturday afternoon. Got to his hotel room, Danny said, "no pictures today, I'm only doing words, no pictures." And I could see by the glint in his eye it was a wind up. I said, "Mr DeVito, it's my day off and I need to come and do a photograph", so I argued my way with him and he said I could take one photograph. So at the interview he kept looking at me, ready for this photograph, and he played very tough on it. So eventually - my turn to take the photograph. I got him to jump up on the settee, stretch himself out, hands behind his head, cigar in the mouth, turn towards me, big grin. Bosh. One photograph.

He leapt from the settee, "That's it, that's it", he said and more or less pushed me out of the room. The photograph published, with Danny DeVito, little tiny man at one side of a four seater settee, barely taking up one and a half cushions with this grin on his face. But what I was able to do was accentuate what a small tiny guy he was, but funny with it. And, Mr DeVito phoned up to complain bitterly about the photograph but he did have a laugh in his voice. I had a bit of fun with Mr DeVito and he had a bit of fun with me, and I think we had a draw at the end of the day.

Mrs Neil Hamilton
Neil Hamilton has a lovely wife. Her email address is British Battle-axe - she is aware of herself. I phoned her up and asked if I could come and take a photograph of her. She was starting a new TV series. Got up there, and she said, "Exactly what is it you want?" I said, "Well because of your hairstyle I think this will work…

"I've got a set of devils horns which will just come out of your Chelsea girl hairstyle." She looked at me and said, "Young man whatever made you think I will pose for a photograph with that on my head?" I said, "Because I think I can observe people and I would never have brought it if I thought you weren't going to do it." She agreed to the photograph and she put them on and she loved the photograph. It's in her bathroom, pinned up on the wall - it's her kind of photograph. It's a decisive moment to get someone to do something like that.

Photography as art
I do not believe for one second that photography is an art. It has a place in everything that we do, it is a great tool; it is not an art. I don't believe that you can match it with something Michael Angelo has done or Van Gogh or somebody painting lilies beautifully. Photography is, most of the time, a matter of record - no matter how cleverly you do it, it is a matter of record. I believe photography is there to freeze frame a moment in time and that can be very evocative in itself.

Aggessive news photography
Every decent news photographer is pushy. He can be aggressive about getting to the point where he takes his photograph. You cannot be lily-livered if you are a news photographer. You've got to get in there and get your photograph and that, sometimes, can be in fairly trying circumstances.

A good picture IS a story
A good picture is the story in itself. For an editor, a still photograph is a very strong weapon. He can capture a moment, he can project that moment that television can't do. Television is 11 seconds of this, followed by 9 seconds of that followed by something else. But if you open a newspaper and you've got a good photograph in it, you will stop and look at it. You will drink in all the different parts that go to make up the photograph and, if it's good, you'll have stopped someone passing onto the next page.

The pain of missing
It's a small death. It is so hurtful that you feel hollowed out inside and you know that on the big occasions you can do everything right and not get it. You just fail. Somebody turns the wrong way, looks down the street when you're up the street. Oh, the pain, I mean the real physical pain you feel. A photographer can go back and get a rocket from his editor, but that's nothing compared to what he's doing to himself if he doesn't get the picture. It is absolute heartache when you don't get it.

Technically speaking…
I think the technicalities should be unconscious. Framing, lighting - you do not need to have five studio lights to photograph someone. You can take it with a bedside lamp. You do not need to have the world's fastest film in your camera, you do not need to have a terribly expensive camera. You can go and buy a Sureshot. If I could only work with a Sureshot for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be depressed about it - I would still be able to take photographs on it. It is getting the moment with the subject. Great photographers like Jane Bowen get their subject every time. The technical bit is nothing. I learned how to take a photograph 40 years ago. I've spent the subsequent 39 years trying to get it right.