Brazilian photographer and photojournalist, a major figure of black-and-white documentary photography. He devoted his work to the living conditions of workers, to migrations, and to the beauty of nature, in an approach that is at once aesthetic and committed.
Sebastião Salgado(1944 — 2025)
Sebastião Salgado
France, Brésil
6 min read
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born on 8 February 1944 in Aimorés, in the state of Minas Gerais (Brazil).
- Originally an economist, he turned to photography in the early 1970s.
- Published in 1993 *Workers* (La Main de l'homme), a sweeping survey of manual labor around the world.
- From 2004 onward he created the *Genesis* project, celebrating the planet's preserved regions.
- With his wife Lélia he launched the Instituto Terra to reforest the Brazilian Atlantic forest; he died on 23 May 2025.
Works & Achievements
First major album, the fruit of seven years of travels across Latin America among peasants and rural communities.
A report on the famine in the Sahel produced with Doctors Without Borders, a major testimony to a humanitarian catastrophe.
A legendary series showing thousands of gold prospectors swarming in a giant mine, a striking image of human labor.
A vast tribute to manual labor around the world, from construction sites to factories, before its disappearance in the industrial age.
A multi-year investigation into migrants and refugees across all five continents, a plea for the dignity of displaced people.
Eight years of travels to photograph the regions and peoples of the planet still untouched, an ode to nature.
A documentary by Wim Wenders and Juliano Salgado tracing his life and work, nominated for an Oscar.
His final major project, devoted to the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous peoples, accompanied by an immersive exhibition.
Anecdotes
Before becoming a photographer, Sebastião Salgado was an economist: holding a doctorate, he worked for the International Coffee Organization in London. It was during missions in Africa, around 1971, that he borrowed his wife Lélia's camera and discovered that images appealed to him far more than statistics. At nearly 30, he abandoned a well-mapped-out career for photography.
In 1981, Salgado happened to be in Washington the day a man shot President Ronald Reagan. There by chance for a story, he photographed the assassination attempt. These pictures went around the world and brought him immediate fame, but he always refused to define himself as a photographer of the moment: he preferred long projects spanning several years.
For his project “Genesis,” Salgado spent nearly eight years (2004-2013) photographing the regions of the planet that remained untouched: ice floes, deserts, forests, isolated peoples. He went so far as to travel by hot-air balloon, by canoe, and on foot for weeks to approach tribes and animals without frightening them.
Returning to Brazil in the 1990s, Salgado inherited the family farm, which had become a barren, dead land because of deforestation. With his wife Lélia, he decided to replant the forest there: their Instituto Terra has grown more than two million trees and has seen hundreds of vanished animal species return.
Director Wim Wenders, fascinated by one of his photographs bought years earlier, devoted a film to him with his son Juliano, “The Salt of the Earth” (2014). The documentary, nominated for an Oscar, revealed to the general public Salgado's vision of misery, war, and the beauty of the world.
Primary Sources
“Photography is a way of living, a way of understanding the world. I don't photograph a subject, I photograph a story that I am part of.”
“Every human being I photographed, I looked in the eye. To photograph is to share a moment of someone's life.”
“This book tells the story of humanity in motion. Millions of people leave their homes; I wanted to show their dignity, never their distress alone.”
“Nearly half of the planet remains as it was at the time of Genesis. I wanted to show this beauty to make people want to protect it.”
Key Places
Salgado's birthplace and site of the family farm, which he later transformed into a forest reserve with the Instituto Terra.
City of exile where Salgado settled in the late 1960s, became a photographer, and where he died in 2025.
A vast open-pit mine where tens of thousands of men dug by hand; his 1986 photographs taken there became world-famous.
An area struck by famine and drought in the 1980s, which he photographed for Doctors Without Borders, marking a turning point in his commitment.
The setting of his last great project, “Amazônia,” devoted to the forest and its indigenous peoples.
City where the young economist Salgado worked for the International Coffee Organization before turning to photography.
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
Autres Amériques
1986
Sahel, l'homme en détresse
1986
Reportage sur la mine de Serra Pelada
1986
La Main de l'homme (Workers)
1993
Exodes (Migrations)
2000
Le Sel de la Terre (film)
2014
