An argument in pictures

Detour-I thought it was important to make way for a strident voice: Sebastião Salgado.

This man forsake his profession as an economist for his camera. He traveled 39 countries for 7 years gathering impressions. This collection of photographs Migrations essays economic squalor across continents that has uprooted millions and caused insufferable damage to humanity.

These images in hues of black and white depict a consciousness of pain with no room for pity. It’s hard to classify them as documentary because they do more than purely witness. In the words of the photographer there is no possibility of detachment, “I think if you just come into it, take your pictures and go, it must be a disaster for you.”

What do these pictures serve? They are speaking for someone, the way I hope to be able to speak to you through this blog.
"The people concerned many times would see me taking photographs," he said of the Sahel project, "and they would say, 'Please, come and photograph my son, photograph me, help me solve this problem.' In the end they come to your camera like they would come to a microphone, they come to speak through your lens."

Speaking about what he hopes to achieve through his photographs in his work Migrations he says: “My big hope is to aid and provoke a debate so that we can discuss the human condition looking from the point of view of displaced peoples around the world. My photographs are like a vector that link what is happening and give the person who does not have the opportunity to go there the possibility to look. I hope that the person who comes into my show and the person who comes out are not quite the same.”


The questions he poses are arresting, "Are we condemned to be largely spectators? Can we affect the course of events? Can we claim 'compassion fatigue' when we show no sign of consumption fatigue?"

Courtesy:

• Official website of Terra: Non-profit organization created by Salgado & his wife.
  
• Interview with the San Francisco Chronicle