Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:14 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote: >I have to believe that with the work you do Salad has to be someone you >admire. Comments? >RJR Roy - Sebastian Salgado is one of my heros. He uses his photography to make a difference in the world. He is able to photograph poverty but still preserve the dignity of the people he photographs. And his prints are gorgeous. I had never heard that about him scowling at children to make them stop smiling. I would be disappointed if it were true. Here is a quote from Eduardo Galeano who wrote the text for Salgado's book An Uncertain Grace: "Salgado photographs people. Casual photographers photograph phantoms. As an article of consumption poverty is a source of morbid pleasure and much money. Poverty is a commodity that fetches a high price on the luxury market. Consumer-society photographers approach but do not enter. In hurried visits to scenes of despair or violence, they climb out of the plane or helicopter, press the shutter release, explode the flash: they shoot and run. They have looked without seeing and their images say nothing. Their cowardly photographs soiled with horror or blood may extract a few crocodile tears, a few coins, a pious word or two from the privileged of the earth, none of which changes the order of their universe. At the sight of the dark-skinned wretched, forsaken by God and pissed on by dogs, anybody who is nobody confidentially congratulates himself: life hasn't done too badly by me, in comparison. Hell serves to confirm the virtues. Charity, vertical, humiliates. Solidarity, horizontal, helps. Salgado photographs from inside, in solidarity. He remained in the Sahel desert for fifteen months when he went there to photograph hunger. He traveled in Latin America for seven years to garner a handful of photographs." It sounds to me like Salgado spends time with people and has no need to make faces to get photographs. Tina Tina Manley, ASMP www.tinamanley.com http://www.pdiphotos.com http://www.workbookstock.com http://www.newscom.com http://www.americanphotojournalist.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html