I clicked the link to read the story and see the photo of the Malian woman. No photo. Disappointed. Feel clickbaited.

Anyone want to join in on a pity party for little doggie @1?
He feels clickbaited!
Oh, it's ok little doggie. If you're really curious, do something highly unique, go see the movie.

@1 Your wish is my command (the image isn't hard to find): http://collections.lacma.org/sites/defau…

Damn Kathy, that was fast and awfully nice. I hope your politeness flows out toward your fellow Slog writers. Answering requests and questions is a mannerly etiquette of a forgotten era.

@4 My pleasure, though I do like the image chosen to go with this review. It comes from Salgado's Kuwait series (Canadian firefighters working to seal an oil well).

@5 thnks for the backstory. The pic is dope. Like when a film reel reaches its flame point and melts down with a firery bubble image on screen.

HE's Brazilian. He moved to France when the junta got on his case. He also shot the only unscripted photo-op of the Reagan presidency.

@7 He's from Brazil, but he's lived most of his life in France. In the film, he speaks exclusively in French. I'm sure he speaks Portuguese, but he opts not to use it.

Why buy picture books of poor people? Spend $10k to feel superior?

@9 The book, "Genesis" (two-volume Taschen edition), isn't even mentioned in the documentary, but when I found out about it, I wanted to know more about Salgado's relationship with money, especially since he started out as an economist. I'm sure it also cost a ton of money to reforest his family's land, a move for which I have a great deal of respect.

What a stupid, cliche response to this film and salgado's work. As if we need to somehow escape from the totalizing capitalist system in order to make any valid critique of it, or should only engage people of our own class or identity in our art and work. As if a generous, insightful exploration of one artist's work by another is somehow uncritical because it doesn't gravitate to the particular sophomoric observation you couldn't escape when thinking about this.
Please let's not perpetuate the nonsense notion that a photojournalist is supposed to not only document problems but also fix them for us.

@11 Actually, the reforestation of his family's land proves that Salgado has been willing to step outside his role as "observer." I had 200 words (more or less) to make my case. It may be a personal response--there's no reason that a review shouldn't fit that bill--but money was on my mind while watching this film. I respect the fact that it wasn't on yours.

It is not really relevant that Salgado has, besides taking pictures, sometimes also done other things. *of course he has*. if he never did anything but observe life, he'd be dead. And you should note I haven't the slightest objection to a reviewer having personal responses. It's just that as a professional, you really ought to have thought through this issue already; you have an obligation to have educated, and hopefully also interesting responses. The hoary shibboleth you raise--pretending that there is some sort of contradiction to getting paid for work involving poor people--reliably crops up to discredit photographers and their documentary works, no matter how often it is thoroughly debunked. The last thing we need is to equate critical insight into an artist or their artwork with a balance sheet. And a critic really should know better. It might be different if there was any reason to think Salgado was exploiting or afflicting in any way the subjects of his work; I certainly don't know of any. It's possible that as a photographer and anthropologist who works with poor people both here and abroad I am unusually impatient with the cliche. But if that's so, I hope you can learn something of benefit from my bluntness.

@13 I look forward to reading your review, and that isn't intended as sarcasm. You should write about the film, just as I have done--and keep it to 200 words.

I do not see at all the point of discussing money in this film.

As "@11" said, the fact that Salgado has reforested many acres of trees speaks to where he has spent his money. People are unbelievably blind.

There are several issues about Salgado's personal life that the film wasn't able to explore. No film can explore everything. But it said everything it needed to say. It was stunning. I felt I had been hit by a baseball bat. Perhaps he earns a lot for his work - the images are specular after all and it would be surprising if they didn't fetch high prices, but it appears likely from his story that throughout his life he has invested hard earned money to finance an incredibly brave lifestyle, incessantly putting his life at risk primarily to expose the reality of human brutality. Not just for effect, but to shock us into feeling compassion and stopping the horror. His message is relentless and his art rises to the occasion; yet to capture and render these images he appears to have required very expensive equipment. Could I fault him for spending money to have achieved the most remarkable visual messages I have ever seen - never. He organises, documents and stores his materials for display meticulously. More recently his reafforestation efforts are equally incredible and must have contributed enormously to the employment of local people around Instituto Terra. What an outstanding man! Faithful to his vision the film was an authentic portrayal completely consistent to his genre. What intrigued me more than how much he earns, is how he survived travelling into the most horrific of human conditions, not only emerging alive, but with images that are more brilliant than those in lush city studios. I was blown away by the heroism of this man and breathtaking images that for me. Does he have faults - undoubtedly he does - but that is for another story, not this one!