In 1984 Sebastiao Salgado began what would be a fifteen-month project of photographing the drought-stricken Sahel region of Africa in the countries of Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and Sudan, where approximately one million people died from extreme malnutrition and related causes. Working with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, Salgado documented the enormous suffering and the great dignity of the refugees. This early work became a template for his future photographic projects about other afflicted people around the world. Since then, Salgado has again and again sought to give visual voice to those millions of human beings who, because of military conflict, poverty, famine, overpopulation, pestilence, environmental degradation, and other forms of catastrophe, teeter on the edge of survival. Beautifully produced, with thoughtful supporting narratives by Orville Schell, Fred Ritchin, and Eduardo Galeano, this first U.S. edition brings some of Salgado's earliest and most important work to an American audience for the first time. Twenty years after the photographs were taken, "Sahel: The End of the Road" is still painfully relevant. Born in Brazil in 1944, Sebastiao Salgado studied economics in Sao Paulo and Paris and worked in Brazil and England. While traveling as an economist to Africa, he began photographing the people he encountered. Working entirely in a black-and-white format, Salgado highlights the larger meaning of what is happening to his subjects with an imagery that testifies to the fundamental dignity of all humanity while simultaneously protesting its violation by war, poverty, and other injustices. 'The planet remains divided,' Salgado explains. 'The first world in a crisis of excess, the third world in a crisis of need.' This disparity between the haves and the have-nots is the subtext of almost all of Salgado's work.

After Photography examines the myriad ways in which the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the way we receive visual information, from photos of news events taken by ordinary people on cell phones to the widespread use of image surveillance. In a world beset by critical problems and ambiguous boundaries, Fred Ritchin argues that it is time to begin energetically exploring the possibilities created by digital innovations and to use them to better understand our rapidly changing world.

Ritchin one of our most influential commentators on photography investigates the future of visual media as the digital revolution transforms images into a hypertextual medium, fundamentally changing the way we conceptualize the world. Simultaneously, the increased manipulation of photographs makes photography suspect as reliable documentation, raising questions about its role in recounting personal and public histories. In the tradition of John Berger and Susan Sontag, Ritchin analyzes photography's failings and reveals untapped potentials for the medium."

One of our most influential commentators on photography investigates the future of visual media as the digital revolution transforms images, changing the way we conceptualize the world. From photos of news events taken on cell phones to the widespread use of image surveillance, digital media has fundamentally altered the way we receive visual information. Simultaneously, the increased manipulation of photographs has made photography suspect as reliable documentation, raising questions about its role in recounting personal and public histories. In a world beset by critical problems and ambiguous boundaries, Ritchin argues that it is time to begin energetically exploring possibilities created by technological innovations, and to use them to better understand our rapidly changing world.

The first complete illustrated bibliography of 1,000 iconic photobooks created by members of the renowned photo agency This fascinating in-depth survey brings Magnum's history alive through the genre of the photobook - an essential vehicle for photographers to share their work. Its pages include unpublished behind-the-scenes material, together with ephemera from the photographers' archives about the making of their books. With an introduction by Fred Ritchin and texts by Carole Naggar, this book explores the evolution of the photobook, as well as the important role that Magnum has played in the history of documentary photography.

Central American nations have recently had the highest per capita homicide rates in the world - surpassing the per capita death toll even in war-torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan - and gang violence has been the dominant explanation for this tragic state of affairs. But why has gang activity become endemic in the region? Photojournalist Donna De Cesare began covering Central America during the civil wars of the 1980s, focusing especially on the disrupted lives of children and youths, and continued her photography project in Central American refugee communities in the United States in the 1990s and postwar Central America in the 2000s. She documents a history of repression, violence, and trauma, in which gangs are as much a symptom as a cause of trauma, trapped as they are by social neglect. With profound empathy for a reality that is too easily defined and dismissed as repugnant, Unsettled/Desasosiego takes us on a visual journey into the lives of children deeply affected by civil war and gang violence. De Cesare's photographs and bilingual personal narrative trace the evolution and expansion of the notorious 18th Street and Mara Salvatrucha gangs from the barrios of Los Angeles to the shanties of Central America. They show how decades of war and violence - as well as the illegal drug trade - have created a culture that allows gangs to flourish. At the same time, her photographs portray the humanity of gang members and their families, encouraging us to understand the lives of youths at the margins and to take responsibility for the consequences of political and social actions that have ruptured Central American society for generations.

Vistos por ojos extranjeros 1850-1990

A photographic tribute to Mexico's rich and diverse cultures.

For the wandering photographer perhaps no country, over photography's century-and-a-half history, has had the consistent allure and been the site of so many artistic breakthroughs as Mexico.

From Henri Cartier-Bresson, who flowered as a masterful surrealist in Mexico in the 1930s, to the American Paul Strand's "Mexican Portfolio"-the spiritual jewel of his life's work-to Edward Steichen and into recent years, photographers have found in Mexico's people, its culture, and its light much of their defining inspiration.

Here are fresh views of the land and people of Mexico, its powerful histories constantly enriching its present.

Carole Naggar is a writer, painter, curator, and American editor of Camera International. Fred Ritchin has curated "Contemporary Latin American Photographers" and other exhibitions.