Sebastiao Salgado Exhibition

I went to a stunning exhibition last night at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. It was organised by a Meetup group that I just joined, and I met them (a group of about 12 people) in the lobby of the museum. The photographer, Sebastiao Salgado, uses a documentary style to show workers, but also refugees of less developed nations and in this case, Africa which he started photographing in the 1970s. The images were all in black and white and very moving in their composition, contrast, subject matter. In a lot of cases they almost took on a religious theme, using horrific human circumstances. There was one photograph of a man dying of cholera in the arms of a woman. It was a startling subject and upsetting to look at, but at the same time a moment captured in time that evoked the image of Madonna and Christ. It was one of the most moving exhibitions I have seen for a while and a nice thing to do with other people. We also got to talk about it afterwards and share ideas about what we thought. I am now inspired to buy myself a proper camera and get photographing!