I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand.

I have been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.

And now, I feel at 85, I really feel that I'm just ready to start.

I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.

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.

I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.