That was in 1980. Corbijn went on to become photographer of choice for many music greats . . . Depeche Mode, REM and particularly U2 . . . pioneering a much-imitated raw black-and-white look with sharp contrasts on grainy film that shunned glamour. He shot all U2's albums apart from the first two. "It's strange. Some people I photographed became very famous and therefore my pictures became this big thing. But I think photography is very simple. You meet somebody and the camera records that. That's the whole deal."

Corbijn has now made an assured directorial film debut with Control, a poignant and deeply human Ian Curtis biopic shot in black-and-white and showing him as he was, a vulnerable young man with an extraordinary talent but personal problems he couldn't handle. "It was actually something I did not want to do, " Corbijn says. "I felt if I was to be taken seriously as a film director I should not touch anything connected to music. But then I realised how important that period had been in my life. I sort of wanted to have a closure on that."

He moved to England from Holland in 1979 on a whim, after a friend gave him a record of Joy Division. "I felt every time I shot something there it was better than when I shot in Holland.

There were very good musicians in Holland but in a way it was their hobby and something subsidised. For a lot of kids in England it was a choice of life or death almost, coming out of their incredible poverty.

"Within two weeks of arriving I met Joy Division. I did pictures of them magazines wouldn't publish, but they liked them. I was very poor at English then. I was also very shy. And Ian also was shy, although it could suddenly turn to anger. But at least I saw part of his life. So when there was a point during filming when it wasn't going to happen, I mortgaged my house and put my own money into it."

Helped by the inspired casting of young Yorkshire rock musician Sam Riley as Curtis ("He instantly reminded me of Ian, not only looking and sounding like him, but also sharing his intensity"), the gamble paid off. Control has won awards at Cannes and Edinburgh. So will he now be making a film about Bono? "I wouldn't like to do that. This is a one-off for me in that sense. It had to do with part of my life I wanted to deal with. I'm really not interested in filming a life of Bono, much as I love him. That's not where as a filmmaker my interest lies."

He's aware of the danger of becoming too close to stars. "Sometimes you get too familiar with people, maybe not challenging them enough, so you have to be very much on your toes. It's a matter of trust, so they know that if they let you photograph them and it doesn't work, you won't use it. It's what I always advocate, especially with U2. I say make those moments available because if you're remembered in the end by only your official pictures there's no life in that."