27 Videos on Sebastião Salgado’s Iconic Documentary Photography
Sebastião Salgado is one of the names you’ll encounter once you tread down the path of documentary photography (especially social documentary) and photojournalism. The Brazilian photographer is especially known for his dramatic black and white images which explore the relationship between man and nature have with each other. There’s nothing like getting first-hand insights, opinions, and ideas from the photographer himself, so we’ve put together a collection of interviews and talks where Sebastião Salgado talks about his life and work.
We’ve previously had a quick glance at Sebastião Salgado’s iconic photography through a video primer by Aidan Moneyhon. There, we learned something about his life, his beginnings as a photographer, and some of the best examples that have made him one of the most important photojournalists then and now. Today, it’s time for us to take a deeper dive into his poignant photography and learn more about the strong imagery he has captured, straight from the master himself.
3Queen of street photography: Lisette Model’s New York – in pictures
Revered for her unblinking social realism, the Austrian-born American photographer chronicled high society Manhattan – and everyday life
The Austrian-born photographer Lisette Model is credited with reinventing postwar documentary photography in the US with her shots of high society and everyday people. All photographs: Lisette Model. An exhibition of her work is at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida, until 21 October
4Terrifying Beauty: A Question Every Kashmiri Photojournalist Must Confront
In any profession, there are stages of achievement to which its practitioners naturally aspire, for achievements confer prestige. Incremental stages of achievement are usually stamped by certificates or awards, which may include money – like the Rs 50,000 cash prize given as part of the Indian Press Photo Award, which many Kashmiri photojournalists have bagged.
So, is it material incentives that primarily motivate photojournalists to risk their lives to capture ‘visually compelling insights about our world’? Different photojournalists give different answers. For example, in a 2011 article published in Open magazine, photographer Arko Datta said, “I would be lying if I said the awards, fame, and, most importantly, front-page bylines weren’t motivations. But more than anything else, what motivates me is the possibility of making a difference. Not every picture I take may change a life. But the possibility of it is enough.”
5Looking at the war in Syria through a Syrian photographer’s eyes
In 2011, during the Arab Spring uprisings, peaceful protests also broke out in Syria. Protesters there wanted Bashar al-Assad, the country’s leader, to undertake democratic reforms. But Assad had no plans to do that. Instead, the Syrian government responded with violence. In turn, some of the people protesting joined forces with military defectors and formed the Free Syrian Army, seeking to overthrow the government. The conflict would end up becoming a full-blown war by 2012 and is continuing.
For most of the war, journalists have had trouble getting into the country because of the dangers. Many have been kidnapped and killed. And, of course, Syrian journalists have been working under extraordinarily dangerous conditions. Photojournalist Hosam Katan is one of those Syrian journalists, and his new book, “Yalla Habibi: Living with War in Aleppo’” (Kehrer Verlag, 2018), takes us into the conflict that has been ravaging his country for nearly a decade.
6Loss of Vision: How Early 20th-century Photography Was Misjudged by Critics and How Archives Obscure the Image
While both historical archives and museums collect photography, they approach it in different ways. Whereas museums collect a few pieces, a historical archive which has photographs in the millions may take the photographer’s entire body of work. I have been working with large collections of photography for 35 years now in my job as the Visual Materials Curator/archivist. Such collections which may range from 10,000 to 100,000 images allow you to see their work in a way that viewing just a few pieces of a photographer’s work can never match.
