Must Watch: Sebastiao Salgado: The Photographer as Activist

I came across this video over the weekend which I felt compelled to share here on my blog. It’s a panel discussion with the great Sebastiao Salgado, whose work I greatly admire. Salgado has taken documentary photography to another level, pushing the role of photographer beyond being merely a witness and into an agent for change. The above video is nearly an hour and a half in length but it is well worth the time to sit down and take in some of the great discussion.

“What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. I don’t want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph.” – Sebastiao Salgado (from PhotoQuotes.com)