Sebastiao salgado photographer biography
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They will feel the life.”
Sebastião Salgado’s death is a great loss, but his images remain. His project Genesis (2013) celebrated the planet’s untouched regions, landscapes, traditional communities and endangered wildlife. This helped the viewer to focus on form, emotion and narrative, as well as emphasising the grim reality of the subject matter.
So many times I've photographed stories that show the degradation of the planet, I thought the only way to give us an incentive, to bring hope, is to show the pictures of the pristine planet - to see the innocence. 226.
However, Salgado ensured that he highlighted both the hardship and the dignity of those engaged in physically demanding jobs.
It was an act of reciprocity: having documented environmental destruction, he dedicated himself to repairing it.
Salgado’s work was not without controversy, contributing to ongoing ethical debates about the power imbalance between photographers and their subjects. He consistently shifted attention away from himself and toward those he photographed.
These include Sahel: L'homme en détresse (1986), Other Americas (1986), An Uncertain Grace (1990), and Workers (1993), a worldwide investigation of the increasing obsolescence of manual labor. In a world flooded with visuals, he showed us that photography could still be a force for understanding, connection and change.
Sebastião Salgado
Photography Books
"Sebastião Salgado: Genesis": This monumental book features Salgado's striking black and white photographs of untouched landscapes, wildlife, and remote communities.
Salgado has won many honors for his work, among them the Eugene Smith Award for Humanitarian Photography, two ICP Infinity Awards for Journalism, the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Award, and the Arles International Festival's prize for best photography book of the year for Workers.
Sebastião Salgado's straightforward photographs portray individuals living in desperate economic circumstances.
Having studied economics, Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in 1973 in Paris, working with the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum Photos until 1994, when he and Lélia Wanick Salgado formed Amazonas images, an agency created exclusively for his work. Initially borrowing his wife’s camera, photography became his way to document what he saw, not as a distant observer, but as someone deeply affected by human suffering.
Like other photojournalists who have endured such trauma – Don McCullin and Kevin Carter among them – Salgado carried a deep psychological burden. With his wife and creative partner, Lélia Wanick Salgado, he founded Instituto Terra, a reforestation initiative on land once owned by his family. Rejecting the “parachute” style of photojournalism, he embedded himself in the communities he documented – sometimes for years – fostering deep empathy with his subjects.
Reflections in a Glass Eye: Works from the International Center of Photography Collection, New York: Bulfinch Press in association with the International Center of Photography, 1999, p.
The way I see as a consequence of the way I live, of my choices."
Legacy and Influence
Sebastião Salgado's work has had a profound impact on the world of photography and beyond, inspiring countless photographers to engage with social and environmental issues through their art. He once said he took pictures “not only with my camera, but with my life – I cannot do it another way”.
The book offers an opportunity to learn from a master photographer and find inspiration in his remarkable body of work.
Quotes
"Photography is a way of life. The work served as both a tribute to the Earth’s beauty and a reminder of what remains to be protected.
His environmental commitment extended beyond the camera.
It offers inspiration for photographers looking to explore social issues and create evocative visual narratives.
"Kuwait: A Desert on Fire": In this book, Salgado captures the devastation and environmental impact of the burning oil fields in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Readers can learn from his ability to document complex and challenging subjects while creating visually striking images.
Without them having a voice, we will never truly know – which further contributes to the sense of a power imbalance.
Others accused Salgado of aestheticising suffering.