I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it.

Photography was my choice of weapons.

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.

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

If you don't have anything to say, your photographs aren't going to say much.

I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it.

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.