Description
Book SynopsisOther Americas, originally published in France in 1986 and designed by Lélia Wanick Salgado, is Sebastião Salgado’s first book. Upon publication it became an award-winning photobook classic, establishing Salgado’s reputation as the visionary reportage photographer of his generation. With forty-nine black-and-white photographs taken between 1977 and 1984, Salgado’s distilled survey of a continent includes images from Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico. The images range in subject, capturing spiritual and religious practices, changing rural landscapes, and intimate domestic life. Each photograph shares a sense of sincere connection—connection between the subject and the photographer, between a population and their homeland, and between Salgado and the audience he seeks to engage. In his text, Alan Riding writes, “Salgado has sought out a lost corner of the Americas and he has made it a prism through which the entire continent can be viewed. A philosophy of life is caught in a look; an entire way of life is frozen in a moment . . .”
Trade ReviewThese are not the faces of despair, but the faces of solitude, peering at a rapidly changing world that both calls out to them and rejects them. –
The New York Times The intimacy of Salgado's photographs reflects the patience and passion that he dedicated to taking them. –
The New York TimesHis use of light and shadow adds a dimension of unreality that dramatizes the solemnity, sentimentality and absurd contradictions of Latin American societies. –
The New York Times, from 1989 review of original book release
The people of South America are portrayed with dignity and tenderness in this impressive collection –
NBC NewsOther Americas was shot during a time of industrial growth, rising inequality and political turmoil, and shows a way of life under threat. –
The Independent
