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Today’s video is a conversation with the great Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism adjunct professor Ken Light and Photo Critic and Curator Fred Ritchin. Series: UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

The video loosely revolves around the work of Sebastiao Salgado documenting the famine in the Sahel in Africa, but the underlying theme is the need for and the responsibility of documentary photography to establish the state of environmental conditions and the human condition within it. In Salgado’s case, there is also a need to not just document for someone else to notice and improve the condition, but to try to improve conditions himself.

Regardless of one’s religious, political, or scientific beliefs, it has to be understood that there is a world of people living a very harsh life who have not been able to take advantage of the advances and political structure of the West who have been brought nearly to the brink of existence. His photography challenges us to greater social consciousness by presenting a reality that few in the West can ever experience. It challenges us to more than debate the marginalization of these people but to bring about change.

This video is rather long, but it is well worth watching not because it presents so much of his photography. It does not. Rather it presents issues and opinions about society, ecology, and modern day photojournalism that demand real discourse rather than the overly simple, party-line discussion that dominates these matters.

Sebastiao Salgado on Amazon

Here are a few sample videos of his work.