Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado has documented the world’s horrors through his lens. He gives voice to often overlooked communities. Now he is also being honored for his life’s work.
His eyes saw what many only know from history books: the war in Yugoslavia, the genocide in Rwanda, displaced peoples in Mexico or famine disasters. But Brazilian photographer and activist Sebastião Salgado has experienced not only the most terrible but also the most beautiful things in his rich life.
“Photography is my way of life, it is my language, and throughout my career I have always been interested in capturing the historical moment in which we live and telling the stories of our species and our planet,” he said at a recent event Award ceremony for his life’s work.
The World Photography Organization in London will honor him in April as one of “the most successful and globally celebrated photographers of today” with the “Outstanding Contribution to Photography” award. His images have become a “symbol of contemporary photojournalism,” it said when the award was announced in November last year. Salgado is now 80 years old.
He was born on February 8, 1944 in the small town of Aimorés in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. He studied economics in São Paulo, then fled his homeland to escape the military dictatorship and earned a doctorate in economics in Paris.
He initially worked at the International Coffee Organization in London before his life took a turn in 1973. On a business trip to Africa, he took his first photos with his wife’s Leica and caught fire. He resigned, moved back to Paris and began working as a photographer, including for the renowned agencies Sygma, Gamma and Magnum.
He makes the invisible visible
This exposed him to different cultures, conflicts and global social problems, which shaped his perspective and his work in the following decades. He once said that he had lost faith in the human species. “Other photographers are in a crisis area for a few days, or just a few hours. Salgado often spent months getting to know the people there,” says director Wim Wenders, who portrayed the photographer in his 2014 documentary “Salt of the Earth.”
Salgado’s works are best known for their black and white compositions. “The absence of color removes distractions and forces the viewer to engage with the raw essence of the subject,” says Salgado’s agency Amazon Images. In his images he often captures the monumental human struggle, but also emphasizes the resilience and dignity of his subjects.
Whether it’s workers in Brazilian gold mines or displaced people navigating dangerous terrain, the common thread of human strength runs through his portfolio. His images often give a voice to people and communities that are otherwise overlooked or ignored. He makes the invisible visible.
After years in the most inhospitable places in the world, war zones and refugee camps, Salgado couldn’t take it anymore. After a mental crisis, he returned to Brazil to his parents’ farm. There he reforested the depleted soil and founded the non-profit “Instituto Terra”. In 1998 the land was converted into a nature reserve and millions of trees have been planted since then.
In 2021, Salgado is teaming up with musician Gilberto Gil on a new reforestation project that aims to plant one million trees a year. Gil, one of Brazil’s most popular musicians, released his own song called “Refloresta” to launch the campaign.
Show the beauty of creation
When he is not in Brazil, Salgado lives in Paris with his wife, an architect. The couple has been married since 1967 and has two adult sons. Salgado has received numerous awards, including the World Press Photo Award (1985), the Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1994) and the Prince of Asturias Prize (1998). He worked with Unicef, Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, providing images for their campaigns.
In 2019 he was the first photographer to be awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. With his work, he called for social justice and peace and gave urgency to the global debate about nature and climate protection, it was said at the time.
After his social photography works such as “Workers”, “Migrants” and “Africa”, he turned his lens to untouched regions of the world, culminating in the “Genesis” series. He managed to capture impressive landscape shots and intense animal images. For eight years he traveled to countless countries, documenting the beauty of creation.
Until recently, his exhibition “Amazônia” was present in the Spanish capital Madrid. It is a collection of dozens of trips to the area where he also lived among twelve different indigenous tribes. But the approximately 200 works from seven years do not show deforestation, fires, illegal gold mining and weapons. They show the Amazon region and the indigenous peoples who preserve the rainforest. “Our goal is not to denounce the horror of devastation, but to show the incomparable beauty of this region and underline the importance of preserving both the forest and its inhabitants,” said Salgado.
Nevertheless, he is concerned about the effects of global warming. Our planet has never been more at risk than it has been this century, he said. Humanity as a whole therefore has a responsibility to “preserve our common heritage, which also includes the wonder of the Amazon.”