Sebastiao Salgad

Sebastiao Salgado

            Sebastiao is on of the most respected photojournalists working in the present day.  He was born on February 8th, 1944 in Aimorés, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.  In college he studied economics, which plays with the subjects Sebastiao decides to photograph.   In 1967 he married to Lelia Deluiz Wanick who is also a photographer her self.  Salgado is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and an honorary member of the Arts and Science in the USA.  The particular photo I choose is from a tribute documentation of the process of coffee from the illycaffe and the men and women that grow the raw coffee.  The journey started in Brazil advanced to India next Ethiopia and then Guatemala.

            I was drawn to this artist because I saw a lot of rhythm, interesting lines and depth.   The particular photo I choose caught my eye from the repetition of the women being lined up with bags of coffee beans to pick through.  The aspect of coffee and the everyday use relates to this photo in the way the workers make rows that reminds me of a calendar. The lines drew me in as well, from the lines that the people make, to the negative spaces on the floor.   The angle is interesting and how it puts the viewer in a supervisor position and how one would look out over the progress of the workers.  Everything in this photo reminds me of repetition especially relating to the way the employees work.  It’s like the repetition and cycles of a machine but instead the people still serve as the machine.