Acclaimed photo journalist Tiom Stoddart has documented major historical events across the world - from the fall of the Berlin Wall to civil war in Sarajevo. He talks to Lindasy Jennings about his new exhibition on Africa's Aids crisis.

THEIR hands outstretched in impish delight, the two African boys pose for the camera, one clutching a white plastic carrier bag. High on glue, they are perched proudly on Nairobi's city waste dump - where they forage for their dinner among the rotting waste, piles of bin bags and rusting tins. They are just two of 500 children, many of whom are HIV positive, who survive on the 30 tonnes of waste dumped there every day.

In another heartbreaking photograph, a tiny dead boy is laid out on a white trolley in an oversized Manchester United shirt. In others, hope and laughter shine out from desperately ill faces; a grandmother is pictured with her 11 orphaned grandchildren and a woman shows schoolgirls how to put on a condom in a bid to combat the myth that sex with virginal girls cures Aids.

These are just some of the many striking images in a new exhibition at Nunnington Hall, in North Yorkshire, by the acclaimed photo journalist Tom Stoddart. Entitled Lest We Forget - Africa's Aids Crisis, it has been documented over seven years in a bid to raise awareness of a disease which kills 9,000 Africans every day.

"Most of these people are dead now," says Tom, sweeping his hand in front of his work. "But I wanted to show that they were more than just statistics. That was really important to me. Take this picture of Kelvin. If he's going to give me the privilege of allowing to photograph him while he bathes, then the least I can do is tell people his name.

"That's part of the reason of being a photojournalist - to go to places other people can't and bring back pictures that make them think."

Tom, 54, of London, has travelled across the globe and been at the centre of many of the world's major historical events in his quest to make people think. Born in Morpeth, he started his career on the Berwick Advertiser, moving to John Pick's press agency in York before working freelance in London.

He went on to work in Beirut when the Israeli forces bombed Yasser Arafat's besieged PLO base in 1982; shoot the environmentalists' efforts to stop the Canadian cull of baby seals and then back to Beirut in 1987, where he captured a world exclusive on the horrific conditions inside the Palestinian camp of Borj el-Barajneh. He was there as the Berlin Wall came down, during the Romanian Revolution and when the troops began gathering in the Middle East for the Desert Storm conflict in Iraq.

In July 1991, he travelled to Sarajevo to document the civil war that was engulfing Yugoslavia. But it was when he returned a year later for The Sunday Times magazine that he was seriously injured during heavy fighting around the Bosnian parliament buildings.

"I was injured by a mortar, which is what happens if you keep putting yourself in harm's way," he says philosophically.

"That was a bad day, when you look and your ankle's twisted around and your leg's facing the wrong way. I've got a titanium left shoulder now and an inch and a half off one of my legs - so going through airports is fun."

While Tom appears to make light of his injury, he doesn't underestimate that it could have spelled the end of his career - and his life.

"I knew I'd either have to stop and do something else or pick up a camera and keep going," he admits. "Actually, I think I take better pictures since I was injured. I think it makes you more thoughtful."

After a year of recovery, Tom produced a powerful feature on the aftermath of the Mississipi floods and, later that year, an award-winning photo essay on the harsh regime for the training of Chinese Olympic child gymnasts.

His sub-Saharan African images, and those previously of famine or flooding, are often done in conjunction with aid agencies. Always, he tries to get to know his subjects.

"It's important for me to respect the dignity of the people I photograph," he says. "I don't just walk into their lives, take a photo and disappear. You have to build a relationship of trust.

"I don't take photographs to upset anyone or shock them but to remind them that we don't all live in a world of free medicine and clean, running water."

As well as world events, Tom has also shot Britain's two most recent prime ministers - documenting Tony Blair's election campaign in 1997 and Gordon Brown's recent leadership campaign. Blair, he says, was messianic, waving to no one in particular, but probably the better politician to photograph as a result. "Brown is a completely different person," he says. "He hates playing up for the camera but he talks more seriously to people and he listens more."

He shoots in black and white and in film rather than digital. "I'm a romantic dinosaur," he says.

More recently, he's been focusing on England, travelling around in a camper van. He was at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire the day before our interview.

"I realised I'd travelled the world but never photographed my own country," he says. "But it can be quite difficult taking pictures here, and kids are a no-go area completely, which is a bit sad. People here have a feeling of wariness of being photographed."

But it won't be sandcastles and ice creams for long. Tom's going to Thailand tomorrow and on to another dangerous shoot, which for safety reasons (his) we'll decline to name.

The Africa's Aids crisis exhibition is the first time the images have been shown together in Britain. "I still look at these images and think I've been taking them for seven years and nothing has changed," he says. "People donate money but nothing filters through to these people.

"I'm not an artist, I'm a communicator. It's hard to put pictures like this on a wall, especially when these people are no longer alive. But I feel that it is serving a purpose. I feel happiest when people are moved by the pictures to do something, write a letter or whatever, and when they tell others to come and see them, that's what it's about."

* Lest We Forget - Africa's Aids Crisis is at Nunnington Hall near York until Sunday, November 4. For more details contact the hall on 01439-748283 or visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk.