Farewell to Sebastião Salgado

Sebastião Salgado (1944-2025)

The Salt of the Earth, Exodus, Gold, Genesis, Amazônia… Photojournalist Sebastião Salgado dedicated his life to photography from the age of 26, working with agencies such as Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum. A passionate defender of nature and outspoken witness to the human condition in many parts of the world, his goal was to relentlessly depict reality—honestly and directly—without the need for translation. He used photography as a universal language and traveled to more than 130 countries throughout his life to document, in black and white, exile and exodus, human exploitation, and ecological disasters on the planet we all share.

Deeply committed to fighting deforestation, he co-founded Instituto Terra in 1998 with his wife Lélia, with the aim of replanting millions of trees on lands exhausted by overexploitation.

“I come from the Earth, and today I return to the Earth. My life is a kind of cycle that I am now completing.”
— Sebastião Salgado

1. Marine Iguana, Galápagos Archipelago, Ecuador, 2004

2. A "Mudman", Papua New Guinea, 2008

3. Group of Dinka at the cattle camp of Pagarau, Southern Sudan, 2006

4. Church Gate Station, Bombay (Mumbai), India, 1995

5. Open-pit gold mine of Serra Pelada, Pará State, Brazil, 1986

6. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, United States, 2009

7. Yanomami shaman in ritual before the ascent to Pico da Neblina, Amazonas State, Brazil, 2014

8. Refugees arriving at the Korem camp, Ethiopia, 1984

9. Southern right whale tail, Valdes Peninsula, Argentina, 2004

10. Sebastião Salgado and his Leica