Ilse Bing
[Photographer, b. 1899, Frankfurt, Germany, d. 1998, New York.]
I didn’t choose photography; it chose me. I didn’t know it at the time. An artist doesn’t think first then do it, he is driven.
I felt that the camera grew an extension of my eyes and moved with me.
When I was a little girl, children were looked upon as, “not yet”—something not yet perfect. I resented this approach toward me. But I was no fighter, and I retreated into my own world. This world was so colorful and so rich that I wanted never to become a grown-up.