The words of Chien-Chi Chang on his friend and fellow Magnum member Chris Steele-Perkins, who died last week.
The whole body of work amassed by Steele-Perkins was impressive, but, as for many others, it was the pictures that he took in West Belfast at the height of the Troubles that particularly caught my attention.
Photographers are often fascinated by the mundane - Martin Parr freely admits to having made a career of it - but what makes that series so special is that it captures the mundane amid the extraordinary. As I noted in a review of Steele-Perkins' book The Troubles for Buzz, he shows that even in the thick of a bloody civil war, ordinary life goes on regardless. In that respect, the incredible image selected for the cover is especially apt.
In a piece for the Guardian, Lanre Bakare pays tribute to those images, framing them alongside Steele-Perkins' work documenting British subcultures as part of an overall ethic of countering official narratives - though the man himself would likely have modestly demurred seeing it put in such terms.
Despite working in some of the most dangerous places in the world, Steele-Perkins retained an unshakeable humanitarianism. As reported in Magnum's tribute, he once told Bruno Barbey: "I still want to search for new things, to celebrate the world and its people - because, in spite of its horrors and my own personal moments of sorrow, to be a human being still remains something very special."
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