I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done.

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.

I'd become sort of involved in things that were happening to people. No matter what color they be, whether they be Indians, or Negroes, the poor white person or anyone who was I thought more or less getting a bad shake.

There's another horizon out there, one more horizon that you have to make for yourself and let other people discover it, and someone else will take it further on, you know.