26 books every photographer must own

also, would somebody please explain to me the appeal of Sebastiao Salgado?

― tony dayo (dyao), Friday, August 28, 2009 11:30 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

i only just heard of him the other day (he came up when some ppl were discussing gibson's developing technique...they both are really into tri-x and rodinal apparently). the stuff of his i've seen online seems very....sentimental? also, p much every photo i looked at basically yelled "I HAVE BEEN THOUGHTFULLY COMPOSED DO YOU SEE?" not sure i have the vocabulary for it, but there's something very obvious about his images. i like quite a few of them, but boy if he doesn't just come on strong as hell. which, i'm guessing, is the appeal: you don't have to be ~into~ photography to look at one of his images and say "hmm yeah something is going on there, i can appreciate that someone thought about this" like, his photos are what i would imagine my non-photographer friends would imagine in their heads if you told them to think of "good photography": old wrinkly hands holding things, moody landscapes, noble poverty, etc.

i think both kodak and leica have used him as a spokesperson, which kinda sums everything up right there

Of late, I've been getting Selgado shoved in my face because I'm still on the DxO Labs mailing list and he's now a spokesperson for their Tri-X film pack plugin. Which I guess is a bit like being a life-long proponent/active user of vacuum tube pre-amps and outboard gear who then becomes the figurehead for a ProTools plugin which simulates valve warmth. A bit odd.

yeah there's a part of sontag's on photography where she talks about how all photography beautifies, even when the subject matter is horrible or gut-wrenching. with selgado, and in a similar fashion nachtwey, there is so much cooking going on in the post-processing and printing process that it's all a bit much. they are doing God's work obviously and raising these issues to a much wider audience than pretty much any other photographer working out there but there's something about the intentional beautification of tragedy that puts me off.

the intentional beautification of tragedy

yeah, this. sometimes his subjects seem almost secondary to the formal considerations (and boy are there a lot of them), which, given his whole schtick, is a little ironic. also his work seems completely, utterly, leadenly humorless. makes sense, obv, but i like a bit of a smirk every now and then