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.

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 think most people can do a whole lot more if they just try.

I feel it is the heart, not the eye, that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye sees is its own. What the heart can perceive is a very different matter.

Use anger to emotionalize whatever thing you intend to do in life - being a painter, a poet or a photographer

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

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