Sebastiao Salgado

War in Croatia
Originally uploaded by sarah4855.

This evening I watched The Spectre of Hope at the National Film Theatre. It focuses on a conversation between the art critic and writer John Berger and the Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado about the latter's book Migrations.

Migrations is a project that took over six years where Salgado travelled to 43 countries, photographing those who have been pushed out of their homes due to globalization into the margins of the world - people in perpetual migration. There were some startling images - both beautiful and heartbreaking. Berger commented that the children who were photographed seemed to just want to say, "I am here. This is me. I exist." As if the only way they could see something outside of their world was by looking into a camera lens.

You can view a whole series of photographs from Migrations on this website and read an interview with Salgado about the project.