Sebastiao Salgado is one of the masters of social documentary photography. Born in 1944 in Brazil, he initially trained as an economist. He often travelled to Africa as part of his work and this is when he started to take an interest in photography. In 1973 he abandoned his career as an economist and took up photography. He travelled to Africa to document the famine travesty there. He joined the international cooperative of photographers Magum Photos in 1979 but left in 1994 to start his own agency, with his wife, Amazonas Images.
Salgado has won numerous photographic prizes and is most famous for his social documentary images of workers in less developed countries.
Most of his images are black and white and are quite are dark and moody. Salgado's images show a moment in passing, even if the subjects appear to be still in the image. Salgado's images go beyond the realm of photo journalism - they show real engagement with the subject and tries tell the story with greater complexity. Salgado often documents images over several years. His images are technically brilliant and each image gives a small glimpse of the real story that lies behind each photograph. Although a champion of documentary photography, Salgado's images are very aesthetically pleasing and sometimes considered too beautiful.
This is a really good example of shallow depth of field - the person in front is clearly in focus and the two people behind are slightly out of focus
This is one of my favourite images - beautiful silhouetted people against the mist and the haze. The texture and contrast, dark and shade makes you linger on this image - makes you think about their journey and what lies beyond
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