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.
Interpretation
Salgado aims to inspire dialogue around societal issues through his photography.
Sebastiao Salgado's quote expresses his intention as an artist to use photography as a medium to encourage discussions about societal problems. By provoking thought and debate, he hopes to unite people in finding solutions to the issues depicted in his work, emphasizing the power of art to drive social change.
In practice
Using this quote in a gallery opening to highlight the significance of engaging with art.
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.
Everything we design is a response to the specific climate and culture of a particular place.
I have no desire to prove anything by dancing. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. I just put my feet in the air and move them around.
Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors' mercy.
The critic does his utmost to blight genius in its infancy; that which rises in spite of him he will not see; and then he complains of the decline of literature.
I find above all that the expression, atonal music, is most unfortunate β it is on a par with calling flying the art of not falling, or swimming the art of not drowning.
People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. F**k them, darling. I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyze his work: If you see it, dear, then it's there. ... I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics. ... I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs.
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