" . . . we humans are terrible animals," coffee table photo book producer Sebastiao Salgado says near the end of THE SALT OF THE EARTH. "Everyone should see (my) images to understand how terrible the human species is. No one deserves to live," he concludes. Heisenberg's Uncertainy Theory says that we cannot observe something without changing it. SALT documents how Salgado was Johnny-on-the-spot for torture in his native Brazil, the Ethiopian Mass Starvation of the 1980s, the genocide in Bosnia, the Rwandan massacres, the Burning of Kuwait, and most of the other Big Time Disasters of his lifetime. If I were in his shoes, I'd be wondering, "Is it me?" Perhaps Salgado is living a reverse Heisenberg, proving that nothing is observed without changing the viewer. If so, SALT could be detrimental to YOUR mental health--that is, unless you can take it with the proverbial grain of NaCl.
Review of The Salt of the Earth
