André Kertész | Ballet, New York City, 1938

Once I worked with the American Ballet. I started arranging my primitive lights when a voice shouted, “Stop, you have no right to put any lights here. You are not in the union.” “What do you mean?” “I said, “these are my lights; I am doing my work.” “You have no right.” I lost my patience and shouted back, “This is my daily work, my daily bread. You eat, I want to east, too.” He won the battle, and I was not happy.

Much later on I wanted to do something my way—with my conception—without complications. I took the dancers along and photographed them on a children’s playground dancing. Some children were playing hide-and-seek and the dancers started to mix with the children. Look at the adoration of the children in the picture. This was a fantastic moment captured in a photo. The dancer, which is the glamour, and the children. the publicity manager sent the photos over to Life magazine. They came back to one and a half years later: “We do not find a place for using them.”

– André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész