When did you decide to turn from Fleet Street news photographer to establishing your own Paparazzi business?

At 22, I came to London, wanting to make it on the world’s biggest stage as far as news photography was concerned which was Fleet Street. Like a fish out of water, I competed with the best in the world and achieved many of my goals working for the Daily Mail. I had a great deal of success, and spent six years in the Bosnian revolution. At that time, when the iron curtain was falling, I was in the thick of it. It was a huge part of history and I had no fear; if a bullet came my way I just used to dodge them – and I dodged plenty. But I was fed up with getting shot at. I was kidnapped and played Russian roulette with.

So I set up the Big Pictures agency. The business was growing at around 100 per cent year on year, which is absolutely phenomenal.

So what are the secrets of your success?

I’m a grafter. I’ll do anything, to achieve the unachievable, I push myself to the absolute limit. Anything that I do, I want to achieve and win. I’m a lover of life. I’ve had as many successes as I’ve had failures but that doesn’t stop me from trying. If you’ve got a business that’s burning, let it burn like the biggest bush fire the world has ever seen. I’m a go-getter and I let my business really rage on, I’ve spent my life putting out fires.

Your line of work is very competitive, how do you stay ahead of the game?

My competitors are lazy, so the edge I have over them is my connections, which they don’t have. They don’t have the work ethic that I do, they don’t have the appetite for success like I do. In that respect, they’ve given me an easy ride. I think I wear them out and technologically I have the edge because nine times out of ten I will know what the next big thing is and I’m working on it twelve months before anybody else.

What drives you?

There’s an innate force in me that won’t let me stop trying to achieve the next big thing.It’s the excitement of achieving something from nothing, making something out of nothing – that’s the drug of business.

The celebrity world is an ever-increasing market, why do you think it’s so huge?We live our lives through other people, particularly in Britain. It is a brand of aspiration. I think any business that includes aspiration is going to be a huge success as now everybody aspires to be famous. Look at Jade Goody, she got sucked in at one end of the celebrity game and sucked out the other end as a complete failure –aspiration. These days people probably have a better chance of becoming famous than winning the lottery.

I see myself as an entrepreneurial visionary, particularly with celebrity. I had a hand in creating celebrity, because I was the first person that really took the celebrity to the market place; that’s why you see as many magazines on the shelves as you do. We created a religion, celebrity is a religion, it dictates what we do most days, what we wear, what we eat, down to what we drive. We are so dictated by celebrity these days that it’s unbelievable, and I’ve been a force in that sector.