Blog 7: Sebastiào Salgado

     Sebastiào Salgado is a Brazilian photographer and photojournalist. His work is expressive in a way I didn't see in the other photographers' work I've looked at so far. From poverty to orphans to weddings, he's captured it. A lot of his photos I've found are from Serra Pelada, Brazil. Many of these show men doing intensive labor in some type of mine while officers of some sort ensure they're doing their work. While some of these photos were taken from a distance, others were taken up-close, from down in the mix. 

    I like the way Sebastiào captured images of the "uglier" sides of society by being right there with him. Standing next to the men in that mine or on the mountain tops with the men delivering wood to a village. Although he wouldn't have experienced exactly what all the other men were doing and going through, he did on some scale just by being there next to them. I feel like that type of immersion adds more emotion to the images because there's not only the emotion from the subjects in each image but also from the images themselves because him being right there with these people shows that the subject was important to him. 

    This is one of the pictures he took in Serra Pelada. Within the photograph, you can see some men stopping to watch what's going on while other men are trying to get away from the two men in the middle. I can feel the tension from within the image. I think it's a powerful thing to be able to capture a scene in this way.