"Really? Great!" said Simon Norfolk, as I woke him up with the news he's won third prize in the portrait series category at this year's World Press Photo. He's currently in the Arctic shooting new work on the aurora borealis, but he's won recognition for his project Burke + Norfolk, which pairs his images of contemporary Afghanistan with shots taken by the 19th century photographer John Burke. Both photographers show the effects of war; in particular, both photographers show the impact of the British military in the region, more than 100 years apart.

"I'm trying to make people think about British Imperialism," says Norfolk. "I can't stand the kind of news photography that's coming out of Afghanistan - photographs of 'our boys' bravely defending our interests despite the fact they don't have enough helicopters. It makes me really angry. The thing I love about photography is that it gets me out of the house and looking at the world but that's the thing i hate about it too - it makes me look at the surface of things and how they look.

"I couldn't give a stuff about how things look, I want to know why things happen, and why they happen again and again. The photojournalists who go to Afghanistan may be very brave, and their photographs may be very good, but I think their politics suck.'

Norfolk shot the images as a personal project and went on to exhibit them at the Tate Modern, but he says he doesn't consider them art, and doesn't care about such definitions. "They were also published by The Guardian Weekend Magazine in the UK - thank God for the Guardian Weekend - and Dewi Lewi published them as a book," he says. "I didn't get into this to be an artist, but i will exhibit in galleries and sell prints if it helps bring the issue to wider attention. I shoot for political reasons, I'll show my work anywhere if it gets in front of an audience. I also have a website [devoted to the project] and that's very important to me because it means that people in Afghanistan may also be able to see it."

Asked why so few British photographers have made the cut at this year's World Press Photo, Norfolk laid the blame on the education system here. "Our colleges are churning out millions of little pasta men who are all the same," he said. "The ones that phone me up for assisting are not ready, don't know how to operate and have spend far too long with their noses in theory books."

//ARTICLE UPDATED 12.57PM 10 FEB - Paul Hilton, another British photographer, also won a prize////