Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, who is renowned for his expansive black-and-white photos that evoked marginalized communities and the natural world, passed away at the age of 81.
The Instituto Terra, which he and his wife Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado founded, confirmed his death on Friday.
Sebastiao Salgado, our founder, mentor, and unwavering inspiration, passed away, the institute said in a statement.
Sebastiao was far more than one of history’s greatest photographers. He sowed hope where there was destruction, along with his life partner, Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, and revived the idea that restoration of the environment is also a profound act of love for humanity.
His perspective revealed the contradictions of the world; His life, the influence of transformative action. ”
Some of Salagado’s work might be influenced by his upbringing. Born in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in 1944, he witnessed the Atlantic Forest, one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, disappear as a result of industrialization.
He and his wife worked closely together to restore the forest and shield it from future threats for the last ten years of their existence.
Salgado’s epic photography, however, was most notable for depicting how people and the environment were abused. Each black-and-white image depicts a complex world of tension and struggle, which his pictures were distinguished by for their depth and texture.
He depicted populations across the globe embracing migrations of all kinds in a recent photography collection, called Exodus. A crowded boat carrying migrants and asylum seekers crossed the Mediterranean Sea in one image. Another image showed Zaire refugees attempting to get water for their camp while balancing buckets and jugs above their heads.
Salgado was a refugee from hardship, not a stranger. He and his wife left Brazil in 1969, just before the military dictatorship that had been in place for almost two decades.
He had already begun to fully dedicate himself to photography in 1973. He joined the cooperative Magnum Photos and became one of its most well-known artists after spending several years with French-based photography agencies.
In the late 1980s, his work would compel him to Brazil, where he would embark on one of his most well-known projects: documenting the agonizing conditions at the Serra Pelada gold mine, close to the Amazon River’s mouth.
Through his lens, viewers around the world witnessed tens of thousands of men climbing clumsily wooden ladders from the crater they were carving. Their clothes clung to their skin because of the heat. They were slung over their backs in heavy bundles. And the ridges they had eroded were a jagged mountainside.
His agent Neil Burgess stated in the British Journal of Photography that he had shot the story while using his own funds.
Salgado spent four weeks living and working near the gold mine with the general population who had flooded in hoping to make it wealthy, according to Burkess.
In his essay, Burgess cites a “complex palette of techniques and approaches: landscape, portraiture, still life, decisive moments, and general views.”
He had captured images of people at sensitive times of reflection and reflection, as well as those that were in the midst of violence and danger. Without a drop of sentimentality, the romantic, narrative work had no drop of instantaneity. An epic poem in the form of a photo was astonishing. ”
Burgess claimed that his phone wouldn’t stop ringing when photos from the series were published in The Sunday Times Magazine.
Salgado, however, was accused by critics of glamourizing poverty during his time as a model.
Salgado, however, refrained from doing so in a Guardian interview in 2024. Why is it that the poor are more ugly than the wealthy? The intensity is the same as it was there. The dignity is the same as it is there. ”
The Salt of the Earth, a documentary about Salgado’s life, was produced by one of his sons, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, and German filmmaker Wim Wenders in 2014.
The Amazonia, one of his most recent major photography collections, captured the people and the Amazon rainforest. Salgado defended his work as a vision of the region’s vitality, despite critics who had watched his portrayal of indigenous peoples in the series.
After the collection was released, he told The Guardian in 2021, “I photograph Amazonia alive, not the dead.”
Artists and public figures recalled the photographer and his legacy as news of Salgado’s passing spread on Friday. The president of Brazil, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who paid tribute on social media, was one of the mourners.
His dissatisfaction with the inequality of the world and his obstinate ability to depict the oppressed have always sparked a wake-up call for humanity, Lula wrote.
Source: Aljazeera
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