There is an excellent article on Migrating Populations with his photographs in the new APERTURE (Vol. 163). Does anyone know what film(s) and developer(s) he uses? In some pictures the grain is so gritty that it's the first thing one sees, while in others even the sky has a beautiful smooth texture.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), July 29, 2001

Answers

Check this out:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/features/legendsV3Q5/legen dsIndex.shtml

I have read elsewhere that Salgado uses Tri-X and T-Max P3200 (at EI 1600) exclusively. I wouldn't doubt that in a pinch he pushes the TMZ to 3200 (thus "gritty" grain). I've never read anything about his choice of developer, but since there's nothing "unusual" about the look of his Tri-X pix, I would bet D-76 1:1 or maybe now Xtol, particularly if his film is souped by a lab.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), July 29, 2001.

I have read the same about his used film, canīt say any thing about developer, but his huge prints in "Workers" exposition, looked beautifuly grained.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.

He uses TriX and TMZ, both developed in Rodinal (exclusively).

-- .. (roger@marques.net), July 30, 2001.

I was using Tri x in rodinal long before i even knew who Salgado was.I think he copied my style! I remember reading around the time of his Gulf war photo's that he was sponsored by Kodak to use TMZ. If this is true then i don,t think agfa chemistry would be used. I have had plenty of experience with TRIX in Rodinal and it does give a similar feel. My main influence would have to be Jean Loup-Sief. Leica M3 ,21mm lens ,trix in d76,Great photographer and not as well known as he should be.He can shoot anything well.Buy the way, I also read that Salgado was using 3 R6 bodies. 1 with a 28,1 with a 35, 1 with a 60 and a 80mm in his bag.On one of the bodies he would leave his leitz B & S head with table tripod.He said he didn't like changing lenses.He also comented that he felt very lucky to be able to shoot only black and white film.I agree ,unless the light is great when shooting colour your shots will be average, This is why even National Geo photographers shoot with flash ,press style.Personaly i don't like it.

-- Tim (timphoto@ihug.com.au), July 30, 2001.

" . . . Jean Loup-Sief. Leica M3 ,21mm lens ,trix in d76,Great photographer and not as well known as he should be." Sorry, I thought he was one of the best known photogs today . . . Or the "backs" he pictures, at least. Great, anyhow ! Cheers.

-Iván

-- Ivan Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), July 30, 2001.

Bill:

Salgado use Kodak stuff exclusively, as they sponsor his exhibitions and provide him with materials. Same with the Leicas he uses, both Ms and Rs.

As R Watson has said, his "Workers" exhibit, live and in Black & White is truly impressive: as good quality as you will ever see from 35 and the Grain helps many of his shots. Brazilian gold miners do not have the same aura about them as Brittney Spears.

There is a lot of info on him as well as an intrevioew in Photo Techniques magazine a few years ago- the one with a picture of an Indian shipbreaker carrying a steel disc on his shoulder. The book (Workers-an Archeology of the Industrial Age)is well worth the 100 Bucks for anyone intersted in amazing human beings and phenominal photographs.

Cheers

Tri-X and T MAX3200 in D 76 or HC 110 on Kodak paper.

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richardjx@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.

Bill:

The website referenced above did not load on my machine. but this did www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/features/legendsV3Q5/legendsIndex .shtml --- after I searched a bit (30 secs through to Professionals gallery Archive. There is some other reat stuff there too, that any photog would be interested in. Pete Turner WOW.

Cheers

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richardjx@hotmail.com), July 30, 2001.

in June I saw the Migrations exhibition in Europe. The photographs were some of the most moving I have ever seen and the print quality was just unbelievable. There were perhaps some 200 black and white prints.

The majority of prints were about 24 x 16 inches, with some at 30 x 20 inches. Grain was not intrusive, in fact barely noticable, except in some obvious low light/high film speed shots.

If you can see this exhibition, I believe that you will be extremely impressed with the photographer and the technique.

-- wayne murphy (wayne.murphy@publicworks.qld.gov.au), July 30, 2001.

Bears mentioning that the Salgado 'Migrations' exhibit is currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Photography (or is the International Center for Photography? In either case it's ICP) at 43rd and 6th Avenue in New York City. Make SURE that you give yourself enough time to see the whole thing. I made the mistake of going about 2 hours before closing and pacing myself for what I assumed was just one floor's worth of photographs, I didn't even suspect that there were just as many on the basement level.

On the way out I stopped in the little book shop and they were playing a video tape that's available there for sale. In the video Salgado was going through some of his contact sheets, and I was astonished by how consistently amazing his photography is. Every single shot was well-exposed, well-composed, in focus, beautiful, etc. I've never seen anything like it. The showed a sequence - it was a portrait of a boy - that I thought was really telling. In the first the shot the boy is smiling really broadly, and in each successive shot (as the boy became more comfortable?) the smile recedes until the final shot - which was in the show - has this truth and emotional intensity about it that really, really gets across the horror of his experience. There's a lot to be learned from all of it, chiefly that this type of photography is about personal relationships, a natural ease with technique, and lots of work.

-- bill brick (billbrick@yahoo.com), August 06, 2001.

I have borrowed from the library both WORKERS and MIGRATIONS several times and I am in awe of Salgado's visiona and achievement. But I think we should remember that he is backed by immense resources in terms of money, personel, and expertise. A look at his own thank-you notes and the credits will show that once he has made the exposure there is a whole team of people to process, proof-print, select, edit, make exhibition prints and generally organize behind the focus of his vision. I doubt if projects the size of WORKERS or MIGRATIONS would be possible without the craft and talent of all those people and especially his print makers.

-- Mark Fawcett (markf@web.net), August 24, 2001.

Last night I went to the local Left party bash (the Festa del Unitā, it's called) and the Salgado Migrations project was on show.

I came away from it with very mixed feelings, and it was great to see these famous pictures in the flesh as it really cleared up a lot of my thinking about his work. First of all, to my surprise, I was struck by how his most effective snaps are actually landscapes, the monumental big photos of refugee camps or cityscapes seen from a distance. The printing was impeccable, of course, magnificent. But the human content was mostly, IMO, just not there. I was left with the impression of someone who has spent a life time rushing from one disaster to the next and many of the pictures were, I thought, hurried and totally lacking in empathy with their subjects. The people are there to illustrate a variety of theses, but as people in themselves are absent from the pictures. A large number of snaps with people staring gormlessly at the camera, the sort of thing that would go straight in the bin from my lightbox. Often with a single detail, like a dove or a hand intruding into the frame as the only detail of interest. Cover it up and the picture is dead.

But mostly, a complete lack of humour. People in refugee camps or slums do occasionally smile, crack jokes or smoke a cigarette over a game of cards, but this is totally absent from Salgado's portrayal of them. Again, the portrayal is ideological and real life must not intrude. There is a lack of intimacy and contact.

Does this sound totally negative? It's just my take. JD said to me just yesterday that he thought SS was bigger and better than HCB, but having seen this exhibit, I vastly prefer Henri. His photography has a vastly greater emotional range, is fresher and not ideologically driven.

Maybe it's jealousy! But I came away feeling that the whole SS project is deeply flawed. It seems to serve the same purpose as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a point of reference and confirmation of our feeling that the third world is the third world instead of a human reality. Frankly, it's a ripoff and - whatever Salgado's personal motivation, which I don't question here at all - I don't think it promotes understanding of its subjects.

Just a Sunday morning rant after a sleepless night!

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), September 09, 2001.

Good for you, Rob!! Very insightful and very articulate indeed.

I admire his Salgado's work greatly, as also his motivations, but am wary of both left politics of class struggle as well as the huge school (if a bent of mind in the West can be called that) of refugee/charity/poverty photography that has been around since at least the early 1950s.

People in the third world really get the short end of the stick from many supposedly "humanist" photographers. Those "gormless" expressions,IMHO, are often the result of violated personal space, but passed off by photographer and reinterpreted by the "concerned" audience, as being representative of the human condition (i.e. traumatized suffering) in the Third World.

That people everywhere have lives, families, weddings, celebrations, jokes, annoyance, stress etc. etc. is usually unrecorded. To do so requires time, commitment, involvement and honesty on the part of the visiting photographer.

Salgado is indeed very good technically, but his images are pure propaganda, serving an end that is laudable-but the supposed beneficiaries are perhaps being transformed into art object of suffering sometimes...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), September 09, 2001.

In the 1930s, Peggy Bourke-White made stunning photographs of poor Southern people, (basically dropping down out of the sky, posing and shooting them, then out the door), for her book "You Have Seen Their Faces." Superficial? Oh yes, but 75 years later we can see the conditions that these people suffered, and can feel for them. At about the same time, Dorother Lange was making her famous photographs, mostly in California. When I see the Lange pictures, I wonder who these people were, how they got into the terrible situations they were in, what happened to them afterwards. Two points of view, both valid. Similarly, Salgado's POV is more to document the situation and it's relation to humanity, than to focus on individuals. I admire all three of these great photographers, and their work.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), September 09, 2001.

I suppose my feeling is that the situation only exists in its particularity. Theory (and ideology) is all very well but must be limited by "things as they are" in each separate situation. However Salgado has an overarching project which leaves no space for this perception. For instance, he has pictures of Bombay in this show which do not show at all what Bombay is, but portray it as a refugee camp. The incredible energy and entrepreneurialism of the Bombay slums is completely missing from his snaps. I don't think that serves the subjects well, indeed, I think it simply reinforces the self- serving western stereotypes about the developing world which it's time we put behind us. We have to understand that the world outside the affluent west does not consist of beggars and refugees living in the gutter, that people are fully capable of bulding their lives without handouts from the aid organisations and standing on their own feet. I don't get this feeling from SS's work, which rather portrays everything as a humanitarian disaster zone.

I don't deny the power of many of his images, merely their intent. However, I was also surprised to see a very large number of turkeys in the show alongside the sublime iconic images. I've always been a fan of his work, but am much less so now after seeing this show, indeed I would go so far as to say that his work (its informing project, so to speak) is diametrically opposed to what I'd like to achieve in my own snapping.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), September 09, 2001.

BTW, rereading that last post, I hope it's evident that I'm not comparing my work to SS's or setting myself up as an alternative to him in any sense.

Sorry if that's the impression I gave to anyone.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), September 10, 2001.

Don't give it a second thought, Rob.

-- Wilheim (bmitch@home.com), September 10, 2001.

I have been a fan of Sebastiao Salgado since the 1980s. At that time he was not a 'star' and did not have a huge support staff or corporate sponsors. I remember reading about him leaving his job as an Economist at the International Coffee Organization (?) and going back to Latin America to document the working life of common people. He talked about buying Kodak TriX film in bulk and then loading them at home into 35mm cartridges. The first few years were very difficult because few magazines or newspapers wanted to buy his black and white photos of working people. Most of them preferred color photos of celebrities! Salgado's photos of the famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, and of the gold miners in Brazil, changed everything and catapulted him into the ranks of the top documentary/concerned photographers in the world.

Salgado's style, philosophy, and objectives and evolved substantially in the last two decades. One of his original intentions was to document a disappearing way of life in the Third World - people engaged in manual labor. The WORKERS book was the culmination of that project. MIGRATIONS is a very different project in scope and scale, looking at the effect of war and poverty on the populations of very poor Third World countries.

It is true, at least in the MIGRATIONS book, that Salgado does not give you a complete picture of the life of displaced or poor people. Even people who have no material possessions will have moments of laughter and joy in their lives, something that you do not see in the photos. Salgado does refer to this in a recent interview in American Photo magazine, and also in the book CHILDREN (?).

I think that regardless of Salgado's politics or agenda, many of the photographs are breathtaking, and will be considered classic works of the genre...................

-- Muhammad Chishty (applemac97@aol.com), September 10, 2001.

Wilheim?!

Rob, you say "I hope it's evident that I'm not comparing my work to SS's or setting myself up as an alternative to him in any sense. "

Aside from the usual considerations of modesty and respect for Salgado's intentions, sincerity, toil, and obvious achievement, why not?

I hope you don't feel precluded from making the comparision on artistic or intellectual grounds...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), September 10, 2001.

Salgado quiz: Sebastiao Salgado took which famous and widely-published spot-news photo in 1981? A yellow Hasselblad (Minox reproduction) or one of Jack's sour apple martinis to the winner.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), September 11, 2001.

reagan assassination attempt?

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), September 11, 2001.

I,m with you Rob. I remember seeing Salgado,s work alongside many others including the likes of 'Mary Ellen Mark', 'Cartier-Bresson', 'Steve Mccurry' & 'Raghu Rai' in London about 5 years ago in the roving 'India' exhibition. His work failed to move me as the others did, technically excellent yes, beautifully printed yes, capturing the essence of his subject, no.

-- gary yeowell (gary@yeowell.fsnet.co.uk), September 11, 2001.

Good for him if he is now in Manhatan, at the other side of any bridge adding photos to "Migrations"; for the sad it should be.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), September 11, 2001.

It was the Reagan assassination attempt, wasn't it, Andy? And you'd better watch what you promise -- I might drive down to Denver to collect that martini (check my email address if you think I'm kidding)!

-- Douglas Kinnear (douglas.kinnear@colostate.edu), September 12, 2001.

Doug and Rob: You both win. Sorry it took so long to get back to this - some distractions in the past week.

Salgado took pictures from across the street - his was the panoramic shot with Brady and McCarthy lying on the sidewalk being aided and two Secret Service agents crouching with drawn Uzis, watching the rooftops - in color, as well, instead of his more famous B&W.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), September 16, 2001.

I'm just passing by-- wanting to see if there is anything on the lattest migration

-- Gerry Figueroa (urljam@yahoo.com), October 28, 2001.

Also just came along by chance to learn more about S. S. By the way, there is a current exhibition to be seen in Berlin:

EXODUS, with 350 stunning b/w-photos by S. S. You can see it until Dec. 11th, prolonged. For those travelling in Europe: the admission is free.

Infos you get under: www.dhm.de

DHM means Deutsches Historisches Museum and you find its present rooms

Unter den Linden 3, Berlin, Germany, Kronprinzenpalais, opp. Zeughaus.

Best wishes

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), November 15, 2001.

What world are you people living in, saying that Salgado is not justly representing his subjects? Im not sure where you all are from, but if you have ever seen the condition that the MAJORITY of the world lives in, then you wouln't even think of saying what you have. Do you think the people of the landless movement in Brasil live in a way that is at all close to comparable to the way that other more fortunate people live? I am truly disgusted by the comment about how we should stop thinking about the third world as a disfortunate charitable cause, or what ever that person said. As soon as we turn our backs and ignore the human condition suffered by the majority, then the the very small minority will continue and continue to control the resources of this world.

All that it takes is people like your selves, caught up in what you consider an art form. Salgado does not make any claim at art, only the human condition.

One of my current professors acted as Salgados guide for an extended period while he was working in New Delih. If any one has any persona questions I would be happy to ask.

Sorry about the preaching

Chau

-- Pancho (Scobbit@aol.com), February 13, 2002.

Pancho,

1.Just out of curiosity, what is your professor's name? i.e. the one who was Salgado's guide in New Delhi?

2. I make no claims for myself knowing what I am talking about, but surely Rob Appleby does? Do check out his website,

www.robertappleby.com

Once you see it, I am sure you will agree he is qualified to comment ;-)

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), February 13, 2002.

Pancho, my point is, I think that the victims of unjust social arrangements deserve _better_ than Salgado. I'm not downplaying the injustice of the situation, far from it. I just don't think Salgado comes up to the mark, at least not with Migrations. Land was another story, his best book, IMO.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), February 13, 2002.