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Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Sebastião Salgado, photographer who cast an unflinching gaze on oppression and environmental destruction
Sebastião Salgado, who has died aged 81, was a documentary photographer who captured the world at its hardest and most desperate. His subjects, caught in signature high-contrast black and white film, ranged from the destruction of the Amazon and indigenous communities of his native Brazil to famine in Ethiopia, genocides in Rwanda and Congo and wars in the Balkans and Kuwait. 'We humans are terrible animals,' he said in 2014. 'In Europe, in Africa, in South America, everywhere. We are extremely violent. It's an endless story… a tale of madness.' The beauty of his work often stood in contrast to the subject matter, something Salgado faced criticism for. 'They say I was an 'aesthete of misery' and tried to impose beauty on the poor world. But why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world? The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there.' In 1986 Salgado made his most famous work, visiting Serra Pelada in Brazil's eastern state of Pará, the largest open-pit mining site in the world. In one photograph, hundreds of miners, many dressed in rags, covered head to foot in dirt, navigate wafer-thin paths carved out along a sheer hand-dug excavation. In another, a topless miner climbs a precarious wooden ladder from the vast hole in the earth; Salgado's composition gives the figure a decidedly Christ-like appearance. The Amazon was also long a source of fascination, Salgado spending six years travelling in the rainforest. Aerial images depicting rivers and tributaries carving through the trees to the horizon contrast with more intimate pictures of indigenous communities: a shaman from the Maturacá people waves his hands midway through a ceremony, for example, or two hunters show off the brown woolly monkeys they have slain with poison darts. Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado Jr was born on February 8 1944 near Aimorés, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, the only son of eight children. His parents owned a cattle ranch that lay eight hours by horse to the nearest village. At his father's insistence Salgado studied economics at the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo in the city of Vitória, graduating in 1964. It was there that he met Lélia Wanick, whom he married, and the couple moved to São Paulo, where Salgado took a masters at the university there. Then committed Marxists, the couple left for France in 1969 as Brazil's Right-wing dictatorship entered its darkest years. Salgado gained a PhD from Ensae Paris while Lélia was training to become an architect. For her course she bought a Pentax camera, and Salgado's first noted photograph was of his wife, sitting on the window sill of their apartment. Salgado would continue to shoot into light, to gain the high-contrast quality that characterised his work, throughout his career. In 1971 Salgado took a position with the International Coffee Organisation in London, which involved frequent trips to Africa. He started to take photographs along the way. 'I realised snapshots brought me more pleasure than economic reports,' he recalled, and he turned down a job at the World Bank to pursue his passion. He joined Sygma and the Paris-based Gamma photo agencies and then, in 1979, Magnum Photos. In 1994, he and Lélia established Amazonas Images, their own agency. On 30 March 1981 Salgado was in Washington covering a routine speaking engagement by Ronald Reagan. As the president was leaving his hotel, a would-be assassin pulled out a gun and fired, leaving a presidential staffer, a secret service agent and a policeman injured. Salgado captured the chaos, his photographs landing on front pages around the world. With the money, he was able to fund his first self-initiated project, spending 18 months documenting famine in the Sahel of Africa, producing two books in aid of Doctors Without Borders, Sahel: Man in Distress and Sahel: The End of the Road, the first of many. Other Americas was published in 1986, a continent-wide portrait of poverty in Latin America, followed by Workers, a record of global manual labour between 1986 and 1992, picturing men digging canals in Rajasthan or tarred with oil at the Greater Burhan oil field in Kuwait. Exodus (1994) was the result of six years documenting refugees globally. 'I saw deaths by thousands every day. I lost my faith in our species… I went to see a friend's doctor in Paris, and told him that I was completely sick. He made a long examination, and told me: 'Sebastião, you are not sick, your prostate is perfect. What happened is that you saw so many deaths that you are dying. You must stop.'' Crossing into Rwanda at the height of the country's genocide, he was surrounded by a group of seven or eight men with machetes. They wanted to kill Salgado, believing him to be French, in retaliation for France's backing of the Hutus. Salgado persuaded them he was Brazilian, producing his passport, and he only relaxed once one of the militia asked him about the footballer Pele. 'I'm not a hero,' he told the Telegraph. 'I know when I'm very afraid because I have no more saliva in my mouth. It's completely dry – I'm afraid. But I was there to do my pictures.' In 2014 he was the subject of the Oscar-nominated film The Salt of the Earth, directed by Wim Wenders and Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, and he leaves an archive of more than 500,000 images. His death from leukaemia was the result of contracting malaria while on a reporting trip to Indonesia in 2010 which impaired his bone-marrow function. Sebastião Salgado is survived by his Lélia and their sons Juliano and Rodrigo. Sebastião Salgado, born February 8 1944, died May 23 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hypebeast
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Inside the Artist-Run 'Secret Mall Apartment'
Summary Back in 2003, a group of Rhode Island artists transformed a forgotten corner of Providence Place mall into a secret 750-square-foot headquarters–now their story is hitting the big screen. The group is the focus of a new documentary,Secret Mall Apartment, which made its debut atSXSWlast spring. Directed by Jeremy Workman and produced byJesse Eisenberg, the film centers around artist Michael Townsend, the 'ringleader' of the covert operation, and the seven other members of the informal art collective, oscillating between archival footage and present-day interviews recounting what went down during their stay. The project, formally known asMalllife, blurred the lines between installation, performance art and life, questioning the nature of public and private space and creating a home in the most unexpected places. For years, the artists quietly inhabited the space in shifts, living out, as Workmannoted, the childhood fantasy of living inside a mall. That dream came to an end when Townsend was discovered by a group of security guards in 2007, but their legacy lives on, captured in hours of grainy footage filmed on early 2000s Pentax cameras. 'No one was ever supposed to see that footage,' Townsend toldThe Washington Post. And yet, it's exactly this raw, unfiltered glimpse into underground life that gives the film its cinematic flavor. Secret Mall Apartmenthas started rollout in select theaters across the U.S. Head to the film'swebsitefor more information on how to purchase tickets.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Boynton Beach serial killer Christopher Wilder's seven-week, 8,000-mile rampage of terror
Christopher Wilder, a millionaire Boynton Beach businessman, unleashed a frenzied rampage across the United States, starting in the last week of February 1984 with victims in Florida. He cut a swath of torture and death of young girls and women through Southern states all the way to Los Angeles then back across the country to New England. He cruised local malls, luring many of his victims, ages 16 to 33, with a camera around his neck and promises of a modeling contract. The following 12 women and girls were kidnapped and tortured by Wilder as he traveled 8,000 miles in seven weeks. Five were taken in Florida — two from Miami and one each from Daytona Beach, Cocoa and Tallahassee. Only three survived the cross-country trek. Surviving a serial killer: Christopher Wilder attacked her at age 11. Here's her story Wilder trolled the Miami Grand Prix with a 35mm Pentax camera around his neck and racing credentials after he'd driven in the race two days earlier. He spotted Rosario Gonzalez, 20, of Homestead, who was passing out aspirin samples. She was wearing red shorts and a white T-shirt from the sponsoring company. Gonzalez was an aspiring model and bride-to-be. The night before, Gonzalez had talked long distance with her fiancé, Bill Londos, until 2 a.m. Her body was never found. Beth Kenyon, 23, of Coral Gables was last seen at a south Miami Shell station with a man who fit Wilder's description. Her car was found at Miami International Airport. Wilder dated Kenyon a few times, even proposed to her. She wanted only to be friends. Kenyon taught emotionally disabled children at Coral Gables High. Her body was never found. Colleen Orsborn, 15, of Daytona Beach disappeared after she skipped school to see a concert of The Fixx at the beach. A body found in April that year was identified as hers 27 years later through DNA. Theresa Wait Ferguson, 21, of Satellite Beach, vanished from Merritt Square Mall near Cape Canaveral. A shopper said she saw Ferguson and Wilder together. That day, Wilder called a tow truck after his car got stuck in the sand along a lovers' lane in Cocoa Beach. Police believe Ferguson was hogtied in the trunk at the time. Ferguson's body was found four days later in Polk County. She had been strangled. Her father was a police captain in Indian Harbour. Wilder abducted Linda Erica Grober of Fort Pierce from Governor's Square Mall in Tallahassee. He told the Florida State University nursing student he was a fashion photographer and offered her $25 an hour to pose for him for a surfing magazine. Later he punched her, zipped her up in a sleeping bag, put it in the trunk and drove 60 miles to a hotel in Bainbridge, Georgia. He beat her, raped her, sealed her eyes with Super Glue and tortured her with electrical current. Grober, 19, eventually fought him off, and Wilder fled. She survived. Wilder approached Terry Walden, 24, a married mother of two, in a Lamar University parking lot in Beaumont, Texas, and offered her a modeling job. A nursing student, Walden was found stabbed and bound in an irrigation ditch three days later. Wilder drove to an Oklahoma City mall where he abducted newlywed Suzanne Wendy Logan, 20. He held her captive at an inn in Newton, Kansas, about 20 miles north of Wichita where he registered as Mr. and Mrs. Kimbrell (his business partner in Boynton Beach was L.K. Kimbrell). Logan's body was later found, beaten and stabbed, near Milford Lake, 100 miles from Newton. Four days shy of her 19th birthday, Sheryl Lynn Bonaventura of Grand Junction disappeared from the Mesa Mall. A maid at a motel just south of the Utah-Arizona line saw Wilder with Bonaventura on March 30. Her body was found about a month later along the banks of the Kanab River in Utah. Wilder drove to Las Vegas and registered at the Ambassador Motel as Larry Kimbrell. A day later, Michelle Korfman, 17, of Boulder City was abducted from a 'Seventeen' magazine beauty pageant at a Las Vegas mall. Her body was found May 11 in Los Angeles County. Tina Marie Risico, 16, was taken from a California mall. At gunpoint, Wilder drove her toward the Mexican border. He took a room at a motel in El Centro. Then he began his journey east, keeping Risico another eight days. On April 5, his name was added to the FBI's Most Wanted list. Risico would survive after Wilder put her on a plane in Boston. Dawnette Sue Wilt, 16, was abducted from a Gary mall, lured by Risico. Wilt was found walking down a road in Penn Yan, New York, after Wilder stabbed her and left her for dead. She survived. Mary Beth Dodge, 33, disappears and is found dead. She had been abducted from a Vernon, New York, mall parking lot, where Wilder had taken her gold Firebird. He put Risico on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles the same day. Wilder died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a shootout with police. He was moments away from the Canadian border. Holly Baltz, who has a passion for true crime, is the investigations editor for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hbaltz@ This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida serial killer Christopher Wilder's rampage of murder across U.S.
Int'l Business Times
07-05-2025
- Int'l Business Times
AP To Continue Crediting 'Napalm Girl' Photo To Nick Ut After Probe
The Associated Press news agency will continue to credit one of its most distinctive photos, "Napalm Girl" taken during the Vietnam War, to photographer Nick Ut despite questions about who took it, the wire said Tuesday. The black and white photo of a severely burned Vietnamese girl, running naked down a road after a 1972 napalm attack in southern Vietnam helped alter perceptions of the war and remains a potent reminder of its devastation. Vietnamese American AP photographer Huynh Cong Ut, better known as Nick Ut, won a Pulitzer Prize and a World Press Photo award for the image. Ut claims the photo as his own. The photo's subject, Kim Phuc Phan Thi, who became Canadian, has continued to bear witness to her ordeal as an adult. But in January, "The Stringer" documentary screened at the Sundance Film Festival credited the image to Vietnamese freelance journalist Nguyen Thanh Nghe. After a nearly year-long investigation, the news agency published a 97-page report Tuesday concluding "it is possible Nick Ut took the photo." "However, that cannot be proven definitively due to the passage of time, the death of many of the key players involved and the limitations of technology. New findings uncovered during this investigation do raise unanswered questions and AP remains open to the possibility that Ut did not take this photo," it said. "The AP has concluded that there is not the definitive evidence required by AP's standards to change the credit of the 53-year-old photograph." The agency concluded it is "likely" the photo was taken with a Pentax camera, while Ut stated in interviews he carried two Leica and two Nikon cameras that day. In "The Stringer," Carl Robinson the AP's former photo editor in Saigon claimed he lied and altered the caption of the image under orders from Saigon photo chief Horst Faas. "Nick Ut came with me on the assignment. But he didn't take that photo... That photo was mine," said Nguyen Thanh Nghe, who stated in the film that he was certain he took the photo. AP insisted in its report "no proof has been found that Nguyen took the picture." Ut remained with the AP for 45 years, leaving Saigon to later work for the wire in Los Angeles, until his retirement in 2017. Nick Ut, the AP staff photographer credited with the photo of a nine-year-old girl fleeing naked from a napalm strike, won a Pulitzer Prize AFP
San Francisco Chronicle
06-05-2025
- General
- San Francisco Chronicle
Associated Press finds 'no definitive evidence' to change credit for famous Vietnam War photo
Months after the release of a film that questions who took an iconic Vietnam War image of a naked girl running from a napalm attack, The Associated Press said Tuesday it had found 'no definitive evidence' to warrant changing a nearly 52-year-old photo credit. The AP released a 96-page report — its second examination in less than four months — about who actually took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo credited to Nick Ut that became one of the defining images of the 20th century. A documentary shown at Sundance in January, 'The Stringer,' asserts that it was actually shot by another man, Nguyen Thanh Nghe, but that credit was given to Ut, an AP staff photographer. The AP concluded that it was 'possible' Ut took the photo, but it was unable to be proven conclusively due to the passage of time, absence of key evidence, limitations of technology and the deaths of several key people involved. At the same time, AP found no proof that Nguyen took the photo, the report said. 'We left nothing uncovered that we're aware of and we've done it with a great deal of respect to everybody involved,' said Derl McCrudden, an AP vice president who heads global news production. 'It makes no difference to us if we changed the credit, but it has to be based on facts and evidence. And there is no definitive evidence proving that Nick Ut did not take this picture.' The AP's latest study involved further interviews, examination of cameras, building a 3D model of the scene and studying photo negatives that survive from June 8, 1972, the date of the photo. The report revealed inconsistencies on both sides. The prize-winning photo was apparently taken on a Pentax camera, not a Leica as Ut had long claimed. Nguyen told AP he was not working for NBC that day, as was earlier asserted. Of 10 people on the scene that day that the AP reached, Nguyen is the only one who believes that Ut didn't take the picture, the report said. The report said that believing Nguyen's story would require several leaps of faith, including believing that the only time he ever sold a photo to a Western news agency it turned out to be one of the most famous images of the century. ___
