Photography Was My Choice Of Weapons.

And I Think That After Nearly 85 Years Upon This Planet That I Have A Right After Working So Hard At Showing The Desolation And The Poverty, To Show Something Beautiful For Somebody As Well.

If You Don't Have Anything To Say, Your Photographs Aren't Going To Say Much.

I Picked Up A Camera Because It Was My Choice Of Weapons Against What I Hated Most About The Universe: Racism, Intolerance, Poverty. I Could Have Just As Easily Picked Up A Knife Or A Gun, Like Many Of My Childhood Friends Did... Most Of Whom Were Murdered Or Put In Prison... But I Chose Not To Go That Way. I Felt That I Could Somehow Subdue These Evils By Doing Something Beautiful That People Recognize Me By, And Thus Make A Whole Different Life For Myself, Which Has Proved To Be So.

So I Went To Chicago In 1940, I Think, '41, And The Photographs That I Made There, Aside From Fashion, Were Things That I Was Trying To Express In A Social Conscious Way.

I Have Been Born Again And Again And Each Time, I Have Found Something To Love.