“
Hamburg coffee auction: 1000's of sacks of coffee being sold, of different names & places of origin. They talked of price, analyzed merits of packaging and transport, praised the climate of some years & varying abundance of rainfall in some regions of world but not a single word was said of the men and women from whose hands these coffee beans had originated. no mention of the Tanzanian farmer who had discerned from the leaves the right moment to separate beans from branch. Not a single voice spoke of the Guatemalan peasant woman who, carrying a child on her back, climbed to the realm of the clouds to bring down the fruits that would brighten up the mornings in Europe.
Sebastiao Salgado does: restores the epic human sacrifice, the omnipresent dignity of work in the magnificent solemnity of his venture--recounting history of the world in images.
”
”