SEBASTIÃO SALGADO
To celebrate 30 years since the publication of Sebastião Salgado’s seminal book, Workers, Peter Dench asks experts in the photography industry what makes the Brazilian photojournalist’s work so special
From 1986-1992, Sebastião Salgado travelled across the globe documenting the end of the first big Industrial Revolution and the demise of manual labour. The result was the classic tome, Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age. The book presented six essential chapters: Agriculture, Food, Mining, Industry, Oil and Construction.
The striking black & white images are an eclectic odyssey, from Russian car factories to the beaches of Bangladesh. Collectively, the book delivered a masterclass in photographic technique – content and contrast, lighting and composition. It is testament to the best attributes of the power of photography and what can be achieved through collaboration between subject, sponsor, publisher, editor, colleagues, friends and family.
Thirty years on from its first publication in 1993 and now republished by Taschen, Workers still resonates, perhaps more so as the world’s population is increasingly sucked into a screen/computer/robot-led existence. To mark the anniversary and the book’s republication, we ask leading figures in photography about the significance of Workers, Salgado’s importance and his influence on their craft, and their favourite of his images from this important book.
Director of Photography, The Telegraph Magazine / Telegraph Luxury
‘There are a great many photographs by Sebastião Salgado that have attained iconic status within the canon of his works, but from Workers I have chosen what might, at first glance, seem a more prosaic image. Shot in 1990 at the Brest military shipyard in France, this picture of a welder, shown above, works on several levels.
‘First, the composition and scale is much tighter than many of Salgado’s photographs, yet it retains a sense of crackle and drama with him shooting so close to the sparks being thrown off the steel. Second, we are treated to his trademark printing with absolute whites and inky blacks. But what I like most about this picture is the nod to the surrealism in the work of photographers of the 1930s, in particular Cartier-Bresson and Alvarez Bravo.Salgado’s low shooting position gives us that eye within an eye, a touch of humour that adds another dimension to the photograph. From record of industry to surrealist fun, this is a great example of Salgado’s ability to imbue his works with multiple levels of depth and interpretation.’
Welder, military shipyard, Brest, France, 1990
Award-winning photojournalist chronicling complex humanitarian and social issues
‘Sebastião Salgado’s style of photography, for me, fosters poetic beauty embracing brutall
