Sebastiao Salgado

I have a way to photograph. You work with space, you have a camera, you have a frame, and then a fraction of a second. It's very instinctive. What you do is a fraction of a second, it's there and it's not there. But in this fraction of a second comes your past, comes your future, comes your relation with people, comes your ideology, comes your hate, comes your love - all together in this fraction of a second, it materializes there.

As in any person's life, there have been difficult moments: I have a son with Down's syndrome; through my photography, I have witnessed all manner of human degradation. But there have also been very happy moments.

There are moments that you suffer a lot, moments you won't photograph. There are some people you like better than others. But you give, you receive, you cherish, you are there. When you are really there, you know when you see the picture later what you are seeing.

So many times I've photographed stories that show the degradation of the planet. I had one idea to go and photograph the factories that were polluting, and to see all the deposits of garbage. But, in the end, I thought the only way to give us an incentive, to bring hope, is to show the pictures of the pristine planet - to see the innocence.

In the end, the only heritage we have is our planet, and I have decided to go to the most pristine places on the planet and photograph them in the most honest way I know, with my point of view, and of course it is in black and white, because it is the only thing I know how to do.

My way of photographing is my way of life. I photograph from my experience, my way of seeing things.

You photograph with all your ideology.

It is important what you eat now, what you do now. If we were interested in a sustainable planet where other generations have a right to a decent future, we would not live like this.

If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture... _x000D_ “If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things.

I don't believe a person has a style. What people have is a way of photographing what is inside them. What is there comes out.

I have been photographing the portrait of an end of an era, as machines and computers replace human workers. What we have in these pictures is an archeology.

I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions.

I tell a little bit of my life to them, and they tell a little of theirs to me. The picture itself is just the tip of the iceberg.

The language that photography has is a formal language. Any photographer is doing something formal. If it's formal, then it must be an aesthetic way to communicate.

There comes a moment when it is no longer you who takes the photograph, but receives the way to do it quite naturally and fully.

The picture is not made by the photographer, the picture is more good or less good in function of the relationship that you have with the people you photograph.

Most of the information we now get is through television and is mutilated. Photography offers the opportunity to spend much more time on a topic. It's relatively cheaper medium, and can allow a photographer really to live in another place, show another reality, get closer to the truth.