NK: I paid my dues. I started art college in 1979, finished photographing my first book ["Skinheads"] in 1980 and had it published in 1982. I didn't photograph fashion until 1985, a good three years after college. That first year I was doing everything I could, like crappy music jobs where I would be sent to a hotel bedroom for twenty minutes to photograph some new band, like Gap Band or George Clinton, and they're simply not going to move from the bed. It was tough in the beginning but I was so desperate to work. I would photograph everything and didn't stop. I worked all the holidays, but it was sheer pleasure.

LC: Is it hard for a new photographer to come up now?

NK: Well, people coming up now have no track record. If I take pics it'll have to be a certain standard, people expect it to look certain way. New photographers are free to experiment more. And there are so many magazines now that will accommodate them. When I started out you really only had Vogue and photo magazines like Photo, there was no i-D or The Face, which were the first publications I worked for. Now there are so many good international ones, like Tank, Self Service, Jalouse and Citizen K.