I have always felt as though I needed a weapon against evil.

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

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.

The camera could be a very powerful instrument against discrimination, against poverty, against racism.

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

I've known both misery and happiness, lived in so many different skins it is impossible for one skin to claim me. And I have felt like a wayfarer on an alien planet at times - walking, running, wondering about what brought me to this particular place, and why. But once I was here the dreams started moving in, and I went about devouring them as they devoured me.

I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.