Lessing was born in Vienna into a Jewish family, the son of a dentist and a concert pianist.
[5] Before completing high school he was forced to leave Austria in 1939 because of Hitler's rise to power.
While in Israel Lessing studied radio engineering at the Technion and then worked agricultural jobs on kibbutzim.
[2] His photographs were published in Time,[6] Fortune,[6] Life,[2] Paris Match,[2][6] Picture Post, Epoca[2] and Quick.
In the 1960s, Lessing turned to more cultural subjects such as art,[5] science, and history,[5] by taking portraits of poets, musicians, physicists, and astronomers.