An open-air exhibition of photographs on London's South Bank is attracting more than 2,000 visitors a day, from tourists to City suits. For Tom Stoddart, the man whose work they are flocking to see, it is testimony to the abiding power of the still image

When I came back from working in the Sudan, during the last famine, I went to LA and shot a porn set. I was standing in front of 16 people shagging on stage, including a dwarf dressed as a leprechaun. I thought I just had to get out of there as fast as possible and back to doing what I enjoy.

And what I enjoy is there, for all to see, in the "iWitness" exhibition. Mounted to mark the 40th anniversary of the Disasters Emergency Committee, which launches and co-ordinates the UK's national appeals in response to crises overseas, the exhibition covers 15 years of my working life with the committee, from floods in Mozambique to mass starvation in Sudan. It is being held outdoors at a development by the architect Norman Foster, just over the river from one of the richest places on earth, the City of London.

The show is attracting more than 2,000 visitors a day. I have been down there talking to City suits and tourists. My work has appeared in magazines - for instance, Time and the Sunday Times Magazine - but in such cases you are sort of filing into a void.

Here, I can stand quietly and listen to what people are saying. Sometimes I can hear them crying as they look at the photographs. It's not my business to upset people, but you do want to move them. I want them to go away a little bit more educated, and more empowered.

I've had many African visitors. And yes, I have heard some people saying: "Here we are again - the third world being portrayed on its knees." That is not what I am trying to do at all. If you put work such as this on public display in a place that is free, you can't please everyone. Frankly, I'm surprised how long people stay - for 45 minutes or more. Even joggers stop and stay, looking at the images and reading the captions. It has reaffirmed my belief that the still image has an incredible force. It is capable of changing opinion. Remember that little girl running from the napalm attack in Vietnam? Think how powerful that single image was.

People talk about a picture being worth a thousand words - well, I wonder what combination of a thousand words would ever have got Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, to apologise like he did when those shots of tortured Iraqis at Abu Ghraib came out. In my view, the digital camera is a modern-day weapon of mass destruction, providing images even more forceful than television pictures. The latter flash before people's eyes and are gone. But the still stays in front of you for minutes.

The pictures in the "iWitness" exhibition are displayed so that people of an average height have to look up to see them. This is deliberate. The result is that the viewer does not look down at the Aids victims or starving children, which I think is crucial.

Women feature quite heavily in my pictures. If I have a classic style, I suppose it is to be found in the image of a mother putting her little boy on a bus. It was taken in 1992, in Sarajevo. He is being sent out of the city for safety. She has a tear running down her cheek. She has dressed him up in his best clothes and he is trying to be brave, but he is confused. It is such a powerful image because it is redolent of similar scenes throughout history. So many families have been split up like that.

I once shot a whole story on the women of Sarajevo. One woman in particular looked like Sophia Loren. She would walk along one of the most dangerous areas, all dressed up, every day. It was her way of fighting the surrounding forces - by going to work each morning looking amazing, right in the view of the snipers.

I am a traditional photographer working in black and white; I like to keep it very simple. After all, a camera is just a box with a lens in it. I don't use telephoto lenses and I wait for the moment, the most powerful moment that emerges. I like to look right into people's faces and capture what Henri Cartier-Bresson called "the decisive moment". Am I concerned about voyeurism? Well, I would like to think my work is humanist. I am always trying to empower people, trying to make an image that will move readers in the west to write to their politicians. But at the same time, I try to catch the dignity and courage displayed by people in situations that have happened through no fault of their own.

The image of the starving boy whose food is being stolen by a well-dressed man is a very powerful one. When it first appeared in the publication US News and World Report, the magazine was inundated with letters, including messages from schools. Many children wrote personally, asking me how I could stand by and let such an atrocity happen. It was a classic case of shooting the messenger. "I am not an aid worker or a police officer," I replied. "It is my job to bring back powerful images."

When I returned from the Sudan, I brought back three pictures, of which this was one. They were all printed in the Guardian. Within 24 hours, £40,000 had been donated to Medecins Sans Frontieres. By the end of the week, £150,000 had been donated. That money fed an awful lot of starving children. It is my way of giving something. None the less, when you see such shots, it is dispiriting to realise that the same thing is happening all over again in the same place.

Do I ever do other things than take photos of people suffering disasters? When I came back from the Iraq war, I was sent off to do Justin Timberlake. I had no idea who he was. In fact, I thought it was a corporate job for Timberland shoes. Anyway, I ended up as his personal photographer for a while. I have to say it was a nice way of refreshing my mind - and no, I didn't meet Britney Spears! But honestly, I would much rather be with the people working on humanitarian stories. They show a lot more will to live, and a great deal more humanity to each other, than corporate people do.

All the same, Justin is a very nice guy, and being surrounded by 20,000 screaming women each night is no bad thing.

"iWitness" is at More London Riverside, London SE1, until the end of August. The iWitness book (£39.95) is published by Trolley (www.trolleybooks.com)

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