Sebastião Salgado: A Life in Pictures
From the small town in the Brazilian countryside where he was born, Sebastião Salgado, the renowned photojournalist who died on Friday at 81, traveled the world many times over, documenting the plight of workers and chasing the grandeur, diversity and, ultimately, fragility of nature.
In photographs — most often in richly contrasting black and white — Mr. Salgado brought viewers to famine-stricken refugee camps in Ethiopia, to a hive of toiling gold miners in Brazil, to firefighters battling burning oil fields in Kuwait, and to chinstrap penguins sliding down ice slopes in the Sandwich Islands.
Mr. Salgado had a gift for bringing together, often in a single frame, the immediacy of individual human suffering and the enormity of the dire realities that he documented. His photographs, frequently displayed in museums and galleries, often show a figure standing against the horizon. Cloud-filled skies are reflected on the surface of a river in the Amazon rainforest. Rays of heavenly light pour down onto mountain landscapes in the tundra, signaling to the viewer that this place is divine.
This is the world Mr. Salgado left us: beautiful, fragile, sacred. Here is a selection of his work.
Refugees in the Korem camp in Ethiopia, 1984.
The Rwandan refugee camp in Benako, Tanzania, in 1994. Right, children inside the Kimumba camp in Goma, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Workers in a gold mine in the northern Brazilian state of Pará in 1986. Some of Mr. Salgado's most famous images were of workers climbing from the bottom of the mine to the dumping ground at the top while carrying 30 kilos of soil on slick ladders.
Churchgate Station in Mumbai, India, in 1995. Mr. Salgado published 'Migrations' in 2000, a series documenting the mass migration of people forced to leave their homes by war or economic hardship.
Chemical sprays protect this firefighter against the flames from a burning oil well in Kuwait in April 1991. Mr. Saldado's photo essay 'The Kuwaiti Inferno' was published in The New York Times Magazine in June 1991.
Members of the Safety Boss Company of Canada worked to plug damaged oil wells, an effort to repair damage done by Iraqi troops.
Mr. Salgado had been traveling for his epic ecological work 'Genesis,' a series about the effects of human activities on the environment.
Mr. Salgado spent years traveling across the Amazon, capturing arresting images of vast rivers and rainforests while documenting the impact of development on natural landscapes and Indigenous communities.
Members of the Yanomami tribe from the community of Maturacá in 2014, looking out to the mountain vegetation on the flanks of Pico da Neblina, or Mist Peak. The Yanomami believe their most important spirits inhabit these mountains, which were long occupied by hundreds of gold diggers, until 1992, when the Brazilian Army expelled all of them. The tribe keeps watch over the region for potential intruders. A shaman, chanting and dancing, prepared the expedition up to the peak.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
10 hours ago
- Associated Press
El Salvador human rights lawyer demands public trial as police haul her before judge
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A lawyer from a prominent human rights organization who has been an outspoken critic of some of President Nayib Bukele's policies demanded a public trial as police brought her before a judge in El Salvador Wednesday. Prosecutors sought to charge her with illegal enrichment and jail her for six months pending trial. Observers say the case against Ruth Eleonora López is retaliation for her work while authorities allege she aided one of her former employers being prosecuted for embezzlement. Authorities arrested López at her home on May 18. The anticorruption lawyer, who works for the nongovernmental organization Cristosal, has denied the accusations. Wednesday's hearing was closed to the public as the case is under seal. As she was escorted by police through the court building Wednesday, a shackled López with a Bible between her hands, shouted: 'They're not going to silence me, I want a public trial,' according to a brief video posted by Cristosal on X. 'The people have to know.' She had not made her initial appearance before a judge until Monday, more than two weeks after her arrest. At that hearing, prosecutors announced the illegal enrichment, different from the original embezzlement, and requested that she be held while they continue to investigate. Cristosal has been an critic of some of Bukele's policies, including the state of emergency giving him special powers that has now been in place for more than three years. 'Ruth has dedicated her life to the defense of human rights and the fight against corruption,' Cristosal said in a statement last week. 'Hers is not an isolated case: it is part of a pattern of criminalization against critical voices.'
CNN
10 hours ago
- CNN
UN demands probe after dozens of bodies found at Libya detention sites
The United Nations is calling for an independent investigation after the discovery of dozens of bodies and evidence of human rights violations at militia-run detention facilities in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Wednesday he was 'shocked' by revelations of gross human rights violations uncovered at sites run by the Libyan militia SSA. He called for the sites to be immediately 'sealed off' and for Libyan authorities to conduct 'prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigations.' Formed in 2021, the SSA (Stabilization Support Apparatus) is an umbrella group of militias that is prominent in western Libya and has faced previous allegations of committing atrocities and human rights abuses in the violence that has wracked Libya since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime more than a decade ago. 'The discoveries confirm the longstanding findings by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the former UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission… regarding the existence of such sites and the extent of violations committed in connection with them, including torture and enforced disappearances,' Türk said. Reports received by his office between May 18 and May 21 detail the excavation of 10 'charred bodies' at the SSA headquarters in the Abu Salim neighborhood in Tripoli. A further 67 bodies were discovered in refrigerators at Abu Salim and Al Khadra hospitals in the capital, with some of the remains said to be in an advanced state of decomposition due to power outages. A burial site was also reportedly discovered at the Tripoli Zoo, which is under SSA control. The identities of the victims remain unclear. Alongside the bodies, 'suspected instruments of torture and abuse, and potential evidence of extrajudicial killings' were uncovered. 'Our worst held fears are being confirmed,' Türk said. Türk stressed the critical need to preserve evidence. 'These sites must be sealed and all potential evidence preserved in support of immediate accountability efforts. Those responsible for these atrocious acts must be brought to justice without delay, in accordance with international standards.' He expressed concern that Libyan forensic authorities tasked with exhumation and identification have yet to be granted access to the sites, urging full and unimpeded access. Türk also called on Libya to grant the UN access to document the violations as part of its mandate. The High Commissioner condemned the circulation of 'horrifying images and video footage' of the sites on social media, insisting that the 'dignity and privacy of the victims and the rights of their families must be respected.' The grim discoveries follow the killing of SSA leader Abdulghani Kikli in May and subsequent clashes between state security forces and armed groups. These clashes sparked protests demanding an end to violence in Tripoli, which Türk noted were reportedly met with 'unnecessary force,' resulting in civilian and police officer deaths and damage to property, including hospitals. This raises 'serious concerns with respect to the guarantee of the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the need to protect civic space,' Türk said. Libya has been entangled in a political crisis since the overthrow of longtime dictator Gaddafi in 2011, which led to the proliferation of armed groups across the country. Although a ceasefire agreement in October 2020 brought temporary relief, Libya remains divided with various rival armed groups attempting to control the capital.
CNN
11 hours ago
- CNN
UN demands probe after dozens of bodies found at Libya detention sites
The United Nations is calling for an independent investigation after the discovery of dozens of bodies and evidence of human rights violations at militia-run detention facilities in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Wednesday he was 'shocked' by revelations of gross human rights violations uncovered at sites run by the Libyan militia SSA. He called for the sites to be immediately 'sealed off' and for Libyan authorities to conduct 'prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigations.' Formed in 2021, the SSA (Stabilization Support Apparatus) is an umbrella group of militias that is prominent in western Libya and has faced previous allegations of committing atrocities and human rights abuses in the violence that has wracked Libya since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime more than a decade ago. 'The discoveries confirm the longstanding findings by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the former UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission… regarding the existence of such sites and the extent of violations committed in connection with them, including torture and enforced disappearances,' Türk said. Reports received by his office between May 18 and May 21 detail the excavation of 10 'charred bodies' at the SSA headquarters in the Abu Salim neighborhood in Tripoli. A further 67 bodies were discovered in refrigerators at Abu Salim and Al Khadra hospitals in the capital, with some of the remains said to be in an advanced state of decomposition due to power outages. A burial site was also reportedly discovered at the Tripoli Zoo, which is under SSA control. The identities of the victims remain unclear. Alongside the bodies, 'suspected instruments of torture and abuse, and potential evidence of extrajudicial killings' were uncovered. 'Our worst held fears are being confirmed,' Türk said. Türk stressed the critical need to preserve evidence. 'These sites must be sealed and all potential evidence preserved in support of immediate accountability efforts. Those responsible for these atrocious acts must be brought to justice without delay, in accordance with international standards.' He expressed concern that Libyan forensic authorities tasked with exhumation and identification have yet to be granted access to the sites, urging full and unimpeded access. Türk also called on Libya to grant the UN access to document the violations as part of its mandate. The High Commissioner condemned the circulation of 'horrifying images and video footage' of the sites on social media, insisting that the 'dignity and privacy of the victims and the rights of their families must be respected.' The grim discoveries follow the killing of SSA leader Abdulghani Kikli in May and subsequent clashes between state security forces and armed groups. These clashes sparked protests demanding an end to violence in Tripoli, which Türk noted were reportedly met with 'unnecessary force,' resulting in civilian and police officer deaths and damage to property, including hospitals. This raises 'serious concerns with respect to the guarantee of the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the need to protect civic space,' Türk said. Libya has been entangled in a political crisis since the overthrow of longtime dictator Gaddafi in 2011, which led to the proliferation of armed groups across the country. Although a ceasefire agreement in October 2020 brought temporary relief, Libya remains divided with various rival armed groups attempting to control the capital.
