Sebastiao Salgado

In 1984 Sebastiao Salgado, one of the most respected photojournalist of our times, started a fifteen-month project in the drought regions of Africa. He concentrated on Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and Sudan. In this particular area of Africa approximatly one million people die from extreme malnutrition and related causes every year. Salgado had the great opportunity to collaborate with the Humanitarian Organization Doctors without borders while documenting one of the tragedies of our times. The photographer was born in Brazil in 1944 and after studies in economics he started working as an economist for the International Coffee Organization in Africa. While travelling he descovered the extreme poverty of african people and began photographing this cruel reality, switching his career to photography.The main point that the artist desired to show in his book “Sahel the end of the road” is the huge difference between the first world living a crisis of excess in comparison with the third world and its crisis of need. I love the work of Salgado, I respect his courage to show the reality of a world that our western society doesn’t consider. It makes me think about life, death and hope.

Bibliography:

·The Children: refugees and migrants. Sebastiao Salgado. Aperture NY 2000

·Sahel: the end of the road. Sebastiao Salgado University of California Press 2005

·Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Sebastiao Salgado. Aperture NY 2003