Sebastião Salgado, the Brazilian photographer whose haunting black-and-white images chronicled the human condition and environmental fragility, died on 23 May 2025 in Paris at the age of 81. His death was attributed to leukaemia, a condition linked to malaria he contracted during a 2010 assignment in Indonesia.
Born on 8 February 1944 in Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Salgado initially pursued a career in economics, earning a master’s degree from the University of São Paulo. His trajectory shifted in the early 1970s when, while working for the International Coffee Organization, he began photographing coffee plantations in Africa. This experience ignited a passion for photography that led him to abandon economics and dedicate himself fully to documenting global social issues.
Salgado’s work is distinguished by its profound empathy and meticulous composition. Over five decades, he travelled to more than 130 countries, capturing images that highlighted the dignity and resilience of people facing adversity. His seminal projects include “Workers” , a tribute to manual labourers worldwide; “Exodus” , documenting mass migrations and displacements; and “Genesis” , a visual homage to the planet’s pristine landscapes and indigenous cultures.
His commitment to long-term projects allowed him to delve deeply into his subjects, often spending years on a single series. This approach garnered both acclaim and criticism; while many praised the aesthetic and emotional power of his images, some argued that his portrayal of suffering risked romanticising hardship. Salgado defended his methodology, asserting that his intent was to bear witness and provoke reflection.
In the 1990s, after witnessing the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, Salgado experienced a period of profound personal crisis. He withdrew from photography and returned to Brazil, where he and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, embarked on an ambitious reforestation project on his family’s degraded farmland. This endeavour led to the founding of Instituto Terra in 1998, a non-profit organisation dedicated to environmental restoration and education. Over the years, the institute has planted millions of trees, revitalising the Atlantic Forest and serving as a model for sustainable development.
Salgado’s contributions to photography and environmentalism earned him numerous accolades, including the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant, the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal, and the Praemium Imperiale. He was also a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014, his life and work were chronicled in the documentary “The Salt of the Earth,” co-directed by his son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and filmmaker Wim Wenders.
In his later years, Salgado turned his lens towards the natural world, producing images that celebrated the planet’s biodiversity and underscored the urgency of conservation. His “Amazônia” project, published in 2021, is a testament to this shift, featuring photographs of the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous inhabitants. This body of work reflects his belief that humanity’s fate is inextricably linked to the health of the environment.
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