First Light

Sebastiao Salgado was born on February 8, 1944 in Aimores, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Salgado was educated to be an economist. In 1971 he moved to London where he worked for the Internation Coffee Organization. His job required him to travel often to Africa, and it was there that he began to take his first photographs. While on his return home these photos he took started to preoccupy him. It was in 1973 that he decided to become a photographer.

Salgado's has taken hundreds if not thousands of photos; all of which are in black and white. Now, how are these photos any different from any other photo we have seen? Is it the black and white? Or is the that these photos are made to make us think and ponder what they mean? Maybe perhaps there is a larger meaning than that which is in the photo? I want you to look at this photo for a minute or two.

Photograph by Sebastiao Salgado

What did you notice? Anything? Salgado once said: "I hope that the person who visits my exhibitions, and the person who comes out, are not quite the same".

Now all the photos I will write about are from a book called "Migrations" published in 2000. Salgado wrote this in the introduction of that book. "More than ever, I feel that the human race is one. There are differences of colour, language, culture and opportunities, but people's feelings and reactions are alike. People flee wars to escape death, they migrate to improve their fortunes, they build new lives in foreign lands, they adapt to extrem hardship..."



Work Cited

Photograph
Salgado, Sebastiao. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. 78.


Salgado, Sebastiao. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. Intro

"Guardian"Biography Sebastiao Salgado. Web. 11 September 2004

"UNICEF." Special Representative Sebastiao Salgado, Web. 12 January. 2009.