"What advice would you give to an emerging photographer who wants to start his career?"
Sebastiao said:
"Im going to answer about the kind of photography that I do only, I do not know about the rest. Drop your photography for a while, go to study economics, sociology, anthropology and geopolitics to understand what society you are living in and come back to your photography.Photography universities will make become a technician with one side vision only".
" The only machine that can make water and oxygen are the trees. I have no faith in human kind anymore but in nature."
" There is a saying, behind a great man , there is always a woman. That is not true. Beside every great man there is a woman", when he was talking about Leila, his beloved wife and creative partner.
" My way of life is photography. You can not be sent by a magazine for a week, take some snap shots and come back. You need to live the moments, become part of the story. Stay at least 3 months. Magnum used to send me 3 months to do stories, not anymore. Magazine do not have the budget anymore to print many images but there is a new market for photographer with NGO and charities."
It is hard to explain everything wise words that Sebastiao shared with us yesterday but this video below will give a little idea on the lesson of life we all received yesterday.
He tells a deeply personal story of the craft that nearly killed him, and shows breathtaking images from his latest work, Genesis, which documents the world's forgotten people and places.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH4GAXXH29s
Read a letter he wrote to young student photographers, (in Spanish):