Friday, August 14, 2015

Such Dignity

I am studying the work of Sebastiao Salgado, yet again. I am running his Oscar nominated biography dvd "The Salt of the Earth" and looking through 2 of his books tonight.

He makes photographs which such human dignity in them. He loves people so much. There is tragedy, harshness and suffering in the photographs but what I get most out of his photography is how beautiful they are. Not only the beauty of the imagery, great light, wonderful textures and composition (he has been wrongly criticized for this), but more importantly the beauty of the human spirit. That is why I think I worship his work because of the love and compassion Salgado has for his subject, for his fellow human being.  There is so much love in his photography, so much human dignity.

Salgado shows the moral strength of his subjects, he photographs them with love, with compassion and with a deep understanding. I need to replicate those oh so worthy themes in my photography. Moral strength and dignity are two very important terms.

Note* There is a movement in Brazil called the "Landless Workers" maybe a title I can use for my proposed photo series on migrant workers.
Firefighter, 1991 Kuwait by Sebastiao Salgado
"Landless Worker", migrant Cambodian worker, Bangkok Thailand 2013