Hard work
David Ransom imagines what might lie behind a blind spot in his view of working life.

A plague of heroes
A gold rush brings biblical scenes to Serra Pelada in Brazilian Amazonia.

Ways of seeing - ways of working
There's more than one way of looking at a picture, says RE Pahl.

Constructing destruction
Women building the Narmada Dam in India are at the centre of environmental controversy.

Maids and Madams
'How can our children dream of things they never see us do?' asks Sindiwe Magona of the new South Africa.

WORK-THE FACTS

Photo spread
Sugar-cane workers in Cuba.

Inside the volcano
Defying the elements to bring sulphur from the belly of the Kawak Idjen volcano in Indonesia.

My pictures look like my life
Sebastião Salgado talks about his work and what inspires his photographs.

The wages of work
Casting a quizzical eye over the product of our labour with Eduardo Galeano.

Flying pigeons forever
Bicycles from China rule the world.

In almost every magazine I do I come up with pictures by the great Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. When you thumb through agency picture files you can't see the name of the photographer on the back, so it's not a matter of prejudice. It just so happens that when I find a great picture that's perfect for the text it's intended to accompany, Salgado's name is often on the other
side of it.

A former editor here, Peter Stalker, began the July 1988 magazine on photography by observing that 'photos are usually something of an afterthought when producing an issue of the NI'. This issue, like that one, turns the process around and begins with images rather than words. But rather than looking at photography itself we focus on work, a conventional NI-style theme.

This is asking a lot. When we're planning a magazine we tease out half a dozen central points that we want it to make. Images operate in a different way. They suggest possibilities, a range of responses, many of them unconscious. Our designers regularly complain that we react to visual images too lazily - 'Oh, I like that!' or 'That looks awful!'. Too often we're content to remain entirely subjective in our visual judgements. Composing a neat pattern of messages from a series of brilliant images is like trying to take a photograph of a great piece of music.

On the other hand, why should we concede to the advertising industry the prerogative to use images as efficient messengers? If what we want to convey is important to us we must surely want to use the most effective possible means of conveying it. We have to be wary of the easy sentiments that powerful images can provoke, the pity or glorification we can be induced to feel when looking at very hard work being done by someone else. But there is a quite extraordinary lack of powerful yet truthful images of work in our daily lives. This magazine tries in some small measure to put matters right.

Well, you will have to judge for yourself. For me this has been a deeply satisfying experience, the magazine I have most enjoyed doing. It marks, by the way, something of a farewell to black and white photographs in the NI. From March the magazine will be using full colour throughout. After 20 years in monotone an era will have come to an end, and I can think of no better way of marking it than with Salgado's wonderful images. I am very grateful to Magnum Photos, UK, for all their help in making this possible.

I began by thinking of 'work' as slightly too solemn and dull a topic for a good magazine. I ended by seeing more clearly the great beauty - which also tells us what's wrong with the ugliness - of what we make and how we make it, day by day, at work. Salgado's photographs have worked a kind of magic on me.

Letters
Letter from Lahore
Updates
Reviews: plus Marvin Gaye classic
Curiosities
Endpiece: by Juley Howard
Country profile: Israel

FRONT COVER PHOTO: CAPPING THE OIL WELLS IN KUWAIT AFTER THE GULF WAR
BY SEBASTIÃO SALGADO / MAGNUM
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER