He is also founder, CEO and president of the charitable, non-profit organization Moving Beyond Prejudice, which works with police forces, students, educators, youth-at-risk and community groups.

[citation needed] He was born in 1943 the son of Percy Saltzman, Canada's first English-speaking TV weatherman, and Rose Cohen.

[4] After briefly studying mathematics and science, he did congressional civil rights lobbying in Washington, D.C., and in the summer of 1965 he did voter registration work in Mississippi as part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which would later lead him to go back to the area to explore the concept of prejudice and racism with his first documentary feature film, Prom Night in Mississippi.

He lives in the Toronto area, and has one daughter, Devyani Saltzman, a writer and literary curator, with his ex-wife, director and screenwriter Deepa Mehta.

In 1968, at the age of 23, he traveled to India for the first time as sound engineer on the National Film Board of Canada's Juggernaut documentary.

His photos have been judged "some of the best intimate shots" ever taken of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and have been seen in galleries worldwide.

[7] A permanent exhibition of his The Beatles in India photographs can be seen above the retail units in the departure lounge of Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

He co-produced the feature film Map of the Human Heart, an international epic directed by Vincent Ward, starring Jason Scott Lee, Anne Parillaud, Patrick Bergin, John Cusack and Jeanne Moreau.

He also executive produced Martha, Ruth & Edie as well as Sam & Me, which received an Honorable Mention in competition for the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.