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| © Sebastião Salgado/courtesy Taschen |
| Salgado's "Dinka group at Pagarau cattle camp, southern Sudan, 2006." Click photo for more images. |
Taschen;
344 pages;
more than 300 black-and-white photographs;
$60
When he first took up documentary photography 35 years ago, Sebastião Salgado was an economist with the International Coffee Organization, on assignment in Africa. With his most recent monograph, he returns to his roots. This book is both a retrospective of Salgado's African work and a personal narrative. Throughout his career Salgado has been most moved by the will of the poor to survive, which he has celebrated in countless images of stunning beauty. Critics have pointed out the artistic dangers of glamorizing poverty, and some have upbraided Salgado for doing so. This new book is, in an unintended sense, a wonderful response to those charges. Salgado's great talent is his ability to cast stories of global economic injustice as one single, Homerian tale of essential human nobility. In his scenes of natural grandeur, nomadic ritual, and war-ravished landscapes, he invariably creates a visual state of grace. "I am from a poor country, and I have spent a lot of time working in poor countries," the Brazilian-born photographer has said. "I don't photograph them to make the rich feel guilty. I photograph them because it's my life -- it's what I like doing."
-Jack Crager
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