The Salt of the Earth

It may be best to start recalling the origin of this word.

In Greek, "photo" meaning light.

And "graphein" was writing, drawing.

A photographer is literally someone drawing with light.

Someone who writes and rewrites the world with light and shadow.

Sierra Pelada, la pray Mine Brazil,

in front of me.

When I reached the edge of that huge hole

I raised the hair.

I had never seen anything like it.

There, I saw before me in a split second,

the history of mankind.

The history of the construction of the pyramids,

the Tower of Babel,

King Solomon's Mines.

The sound of a single machine in there was no sound.

Only you could hear

the murmur of 50,000 people in a big hole.

Conversations, noise, human noise

mixed with touches manuals ...

Actually, I have traveled to the beginning of time there.

I could almost hear the murmur of gold in those souls.

We had to throw all that land.

Not everything is gold,

They had to climb, get out, climb the small stairs

then get to the big stairs,

and come to the surface.

You're not thinking of falling.

And if you fall, there is a risk you take several.

I up several times a day

and it never occurred to me that I might fall

because no one fell.

We were there to carry bags or to take pictures, in my case.

The men went up there 50 or 60 times a day.

The only way down an inclined plane like that

He is running.

Si paras, te caes.

All these people together formed a very organized world.

But completely crazy.

They may look like slaves,

but there was not a single slave.

If there was slavery there, it was the desire to be rich.

Everyone wanted to be rich.

There you could find everything: intellectuals, lawyers,

Farm employees,

City workers ...

They all came to look for an opportunity.

Because when we gave a gold mine,

everyone working in that part of the mine

They had the right to choose a bag.

And in those sacks they had chosen

slavery was hiding.

It could be nothing or could be a kilo of gold.

At that time they played their independence.

All men, when they begin to touch the gold,

They do not return.

I saw this picture for the first time in a gallery,

more than twenty years ago.

I did not know who had taken.

I thought, "He must be a great photographer and an adventurer."

Behind it was a stamp and a signature.

Sebastiao Salgado.

I bought a copy.

The gallery drawer pulled more photos of the same photographer.

What I saw moved me deeply,

especially this image,

portrait of a blind woman Tuareg.

Even though tears cause I see every day,

So since then, it hangs on my desk.

I knew something of Sebastiao Salgado.

Really they cared about people.

This meant a lot to me.

At the end of the day, people are the salt of the earth.

It was a long time before we met

and we talked about his life, his work and where it came from everything.

The salt of the earth

We can put many photographers in one place,

always will draw very different pictures

because necessarily come

very very different sites.

Everyone has their way of seeing,

each according to his story.

I think my story

It is that I learned my way to see here in this place.

Here I have an ideal world.

Took long walks with my father,

through this place, and we came here to watch.

Behind each of these mountains,

there is a story, there is something to see.

Here I dreamed a lot.

He wanted to go beyond these mountains, he wanted to know.

A JOURNEY WITH Sebastiao Salgado

MOUNTAINS OF WEST PAPUA, INDONESIA, Village Yali, 2011

Sebastiao was very bohemian, was always traveling.

He liked to travel as anyone.

My father was like that.

It was not anywhere. It was like a shuttle.

That was Tiao.

I thought I was in Vitoria, and was here.

O he was in the north, or making political propaganda.

And as for studies,

if I had not had friends, he would have studied.

Sebastiao was left for studies. He gave a lot of work.

But he studied economics.

I wanted to do law.

He studied one year, but did not like

and he switched to economics, and did well.

This was Sebastiao Salgado,

Father.

He bequeathed his name to his only son,

who, though he remained all his life a restless traveler,

He benefited from studies that his father forced him to take

in ways that would never have imagined.

His studies in Economics endowed him sound knowledge

markets, trade and industry.

So I knew what ruled the world.

For him, all started in Aimors, a small town in Brazil.

There the estate of his father stood under the big sky.

There were vast Atlantic forests.

The river then was still navigable.

But above all, endless trains were passing by

bursting with minerals, iron ore

going from there to the rest of the world.

At the end of the day, this was and still is the largest mining area in the world.

That's where Sebastiao grew. He was the only child among seven sisters.

What a life!

Every summer,

He played on the banks of the Rio Doce, the "sweet river".

That's where we are.

So here we are,

our small crew.

Sebastian, ?te ah falls?

I learned one thing.

Having a photographer in front of my camera

It is very different from shooting anyone else.

Not standing still doing himself.

No. For professional bias, react and respond

using his weapon, his camera.

Returns the shot.

- Wim, I have a very nice picture of you. - I will not say it.

I can imagine!

In this case, it was not just me ... fotografindome

Look at the picture.

Two of us had on target.

The other, my fellow director, was his eldest son, Julian.

He had already accompanied his father with his camera on several trips,

as Papua New Guinea, who have already seen.

Or here, to a remote island north of the East Siberian Sea.

I wish I could join them.

Father and son Salgado invited me to continue this documentary with them,

I guess to add an external view of your adventure.

I did not hesitate for a second.

What more could you ask for?

At last I could get to know this man,

discover what motivated him

and why his work had impressed me so much.

I did not know I was going to discover

much more than a photographer.

Sebastiao was 15

when he took the train and went to the small town forever

to attend school in the provincial capital of Vitoria.

So young, at first did not know what to do with money in their pockets.

I had never paid any money.

On the farm, which produced all of them.

So, at first, starved,

dreading going to a store to order something to eat.

Ignorant of what had become of Sebastiao

He had not appeared this girl in your life.

Lelia.

I was 17, I was studying music and incredibly beautiful.

It was love at first sight.

When Sebastiao won a scholarship

to study for a Master in Economics from the University of Sao Paulo

they moved there and married.

It was the 60,

both they involved in left-wing movements,

as other students in Paris, Berlin or Chicago.

Brazil was under the rule of a brutal military dictatorship,

thus, the risk of being arrested, deported and tortured was constant.

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