On a trip to Berlin I just came across these moving photos of mass immigration taken from 1994 - 2000. To be seen are 350 exellent b/w-prints from all the continents (but canīt remenber Australia just now).

KODAK and LEICA sponsered the show which closes down on Dec. 11th. For those of you travelling in Europe just now: the admission is free.

The exhibition is shown:

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

Infos and photos to be seen under: www.dhm.de

Best wishes

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

Answers

For All;

If you can not fit Berlin into a busy schedule before Dec. 11th, there is a great coffeetable book with first class reproductions of the photos in the show. It costs nearly $US 100, but for any Leica nut, or photographer of any kind with a heart, it is worth it.

Three simple lenses, Tri X & T Max 3200 and probably among the best printers in the world make it all seem so easy. Note particularly the shot in the train station in India.

Cheers

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richard.ilomaki@fmglobal.com), November 16, 2001.

I know Salgados work (he's also featured in one of the latest editions of American Photo) - and actually bought my R6 partly because I knew he uses the same (actually 6.2)!!! Stupid I know - but I like to know the capabilities of what I buy - even if I'm never gonna reach the same heights...but here's my question: which 3 lenses does he use?

-- Chris (cboe@hotmail.com), November 16, 2001.

The shot in Bombay's Churchgate Station (one of my favourites of his) has been crucial to my thinking about photography, its uses and limitations. I remember seeing it published in a retrospective by Il Venerdi' here in Italy a couple of years back, with the caption: "Bombay, the world capital of poverty". What this picture actually shows is how Bombay is a city of enormous prosperity and commercial drive, as the white kurta-clad office workers stream off the trains to their jobs in downtown Bombay. I'm sure Salgado himself didn't caption it that way himself, but it confirmed me in my belief that how pictures are used determines their meaning as much as the photographer's intention. In fact it put me right off the Venerdi'.

I was a great Salgado believer until I saw this exhibit myself a couple of months back. For two reasons: one, I thought there was an inordinate number of turkeys in the show alongside the good (sublime) stuff which has rightly made his reputation, and two, I am more and more against the subsumption of individual realities (as nuanced and divergent as they will always be) to overarching global concepts like "Migrations" or whatever.

As to the latter, let me give an example. The concept of motherhood is generally believed to be a universal, in the sense that a mother's love for her children is an emotion which spans cultural differences. But what about a mother who aborts her female foetuses so she can have a boy child (I mean as a culturally-determined choice, not an individual one)? She certainly loves her children, but the nature of that love is different in some way that it's hard to express. Child labour is another area which tends to be indicted as exploitation regardless of its context, for instance. I think there are many such cultural incompatibilities and divergencies, and Salgado's approach to the world strikes me as inadequate to express them.

Salgado, to my mind, is just the most recent and spectacular proponent of a western cultural hegemony that was best exemplified by "The Family of Man". This is all very well, everyone can pick and choose in the intellectual supermarket of our times, but it just doesn't do it for me anymore.

Just some thoughts which have been boiling inside my head over the last few months!

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), November 16, 2001.

Salgado uses 28, 35 and 60mm lenses mounted on Leica R6 cameras. He also uses M&īs but Iīm not sure about the lenses (probaply 28, 35, 50). He uses Kodak Tri-X and T-Max P3200 (he sometimes pushes the T-Max to 12800 ISO!!).

-- Jonas Vilslev (jonasvilslev@groenjord.dk), November 16, 2001.

Not M&`s but M6`s

-- Jonas Vilslev (jonasvilslev@groenjord.dk), November 16, 2001.

Hallo,

a bit further down this this site see:

> Older Messages, and

>> Leica Photographers

you can find some interesting prevoius entries. Here you also find answers to the question of camera gear which always seems to be of extraordinary interest.

Unfortunately all my gear doesnīt help me too much making really extraordinary photos (only a bit).

Best wishes and good shootung

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), November 16, 2001.

I don't really see your point Rob. Unless I'm mistreading you (and I may well be), you ssem to be saying that it's wrong for a photographer/artist to impart his view of the world into his work. Is that really reasonable to expect? As we grow older (experience more in life) we all widen out perceptions as to what goes on in the world, but Salgado (IMO) is quilty only of viewing the world through his eyes, capturing it on film and then showing us the results. It is up to us to filter all we see and come up with our own perception. But I don't see that this invalidates his view in any way......

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

My point is simply that these largescale projects which unify a variety of experiences under a single heading do so by ignoring the variety of meanings that each of them has. Take child labour and education. A child working on his dad's farm or in his parents' laundry business is a different story from a child slave working for a carpet factory in a distant village, and yet both tend to be understood as simply aspects of the same thing. Or, migrations: a family migrating to the city in search of jobs is rather different from a refugee who's just arrived on a crowded boat from another country. But Salgado's work doesn't draw these distinctions, which to my mind are essential to understanding the way things work. The essence of his work is that it draws a variety of experiences from around the world under a single embracing concept. I don't think it works, really, except at the most superficial level.

Of course he's entitled to any point of view he wants! No problem. I personally think that this approach to people's lives exploits them in favour of promoting a large global concept which may be foreign their realities or simply inapplicable. And this kind of assimilation of other realities to a single set of standards can be very inappropriate, IMO.

Anyway, as I said, I admire many of his snaps.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), November 16, 2001.

re: Bob Todrick's comments

Perhaps what Rob is arguing is that Salgado should be able to bring a different vision to his photographs despite his Western perspective. Indeed, how photos are made- what subjects, what decisive moments, what compositions, etc. etc., can be more of a mirror on the culture that produces them- i.e., Salgado's- than simply a representation of their subject. Perhaps we have the expectation on a photographer as Salgado, based on his work, and on the claims, explicit and implicit, he makes with it, that he should have a perspective that is deeply critical of our own society. I've only had the chance to leaf through a few of his books- does his work include making connections between what happens, say, north of the equator, and what he has stunningly documented to the south?

You're right that it's up to the viewer to make her own decisions about the photographs she sees, but let's not forget that it's the photographer who chooses what images we see and how we see them. And so, photographs tell as much if not more about the photographer as his subject.

-- T. Wu (tsesung@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

Now this (T.Wu) I don't agree with at all. As a faily successful photographic artist (I've been showing in galleries for 15 years, so I do feel I have a valid perspective here), it is not my duty to try and tailor my vision to yours, the worlds, or anyone elses. That is what art (and I include documentary photography as art) is all about. The artists gives HIS/HERS perspective on the world - that is all they are expected to do......

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

sometimes pushes the T-Max to 12800 ISO!!).

How would you do that on say an M6? Would you set the meter at 6400, and then stop down 3 or 4 stops?

-- Ken Kwok (kkwok@gostanford.com), November 16, 2001.

I have to say that I'm a fan of Salgado and his work. He is something of a throwback to the photographers of 20 or 30 years ago in both content and technique. I have his book Migrations on my coffee table. There is a good article about him in the current version of Popular photography with the obligatory sidebar on his technique. I'm going to put on my hardhat now to avoid the sticks and stones and say that he makes his living by photographing the poor and suffering. This reminds me a little of Martin Nicholson's definition of a Sociologist 'someone with his eye on the poor and his hand out to the rich'. I also appreciate Harold Isaacs similar work (but in color) with the UN. He uses Minoltas. He won a Leica one time and traded it for a Minolta and a whole set of lenses because he couldn't afford the Leica lenses. No offense intended. Peace.

-- Don (wgpinc@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

Just as a followup - I'll be in line in January when Salgado's exhibit opens at the Museum at the U.C. Berkeley campus. Cheers.

-- Don (wgpinc@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

Kenas I understand he mainly uses R6īs.

And about Rob coments I can only try to understand his point of view, wich I see can be similar to mine, if I understood it well; I have admire Salgado work for many years, specialy when I saw workers in Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City few years ago; his prints are tecnicaly superb, although the way he represents individuals as well as comunities and societies, is for me kind of unreal, I canīt explain with words what I canīt see with my eyes, I remember some document work he made about Chiapas a few years ago, it came out in Rolling Stone Magazine, and even pictures were great, reality wasnīt there, may be it was in his "economist" point of view, but for me documental photography is something else. And with this words I may gain to my self the completly disaproval of the entire photojounalist comunity, so what.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), November 16, 2001.

Now this (T.Wu) I don't agree with at all. As a faily successful photographic artist (I've been showing in galleries for 15 years, so I do feel I have a valid perspective here), it is not my duty to try and tailor my vision to yours, the worlds, or anyone elses. That is what art (and I include documentary photography as art) is all about. The artists gives HIS/HERS perspective on the world - that is all they are expected to do......

What don't you agree with?

It seems you misunderstand what I've written (photographic credentials notwithstanding ;-). No one is dictating what a photographer's vision should be, just critiquing what it is as it's shown in his work. You say that an artist gives his/ her perspective on the world-- well, exactly so- and I think Rob's critical of Salgado's treatment of the subject:

But Salgado's work doesn't draw these distinctions, which to my mind are essential to understanding the way things work. The essence of his work is that it draws a variety of experiences from around the world under a single embracing concept. I don't think it works, really, except at the most superficial level.

I think Rob points to an interesting tension between an ethical prohibition against foisting foreign values on a subject- esp. one who is so disenfranchised, and the desire of the artist (perhaps one who is too self-consious for his own good) to find a universal theme. (Of course, we may wonder if all people's truly desire, as this prohibition suggests, to control how they are perceived by others.)

I look forward to his exhibit here in the SF Bay area and will keep in mind Roberto's observation:

although the way he represents individuals as well as comunities and societies, is for me kind of unreal

-- Tse-Sung (tsesung@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

We may be arguing semantics, but what you said - Perhaps we have the expectation on a photographer as Salgado, based on his work, and on the claims, explicit and implicit, he makes with it, that he should have a perspective that is deeply critical of our own society - that you feel that Salgado should be critical of our society. Maybe he is or isn't, but that's up to him. Or I may very well be misunderstanding what you are saying, in which case my apologies.....

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

Oh I see- yes, that "should" may have been a little strong there.

I think we're not far apart on this.

;-)

-- Tse-Sung (tsesung@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.

I will admit that I picked up an issue of "Popular Photography" in the grocery store tonight. The latest issue carries an article about the "Migrations" exhibit. It includes 8 photos from the exhibit. On the issue of equipment, he uses several R6.2 bodies and several M6 bodies, as he does not like to change lenses. For the R, he uses the 19, 28, 35 lux, 60 macro, 100, and 180 lenses. For the M, he uses the 35, 50, and 90 lenses (I forget which versions). He carries up to 225 rolls of film, 5 to a box (he uses the little boxes we get our slides in), and carries all this in a backpack. Tri-X and 3200.

-- john costo (mahler@lvcm.com), November 17, 2001.