Latest news with #SebastiaoSalgado
Observer
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Observer
Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art
Brazilian photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado, who died Friday, spent five decades chronicling the best and worst of planet Earth, from far-flung natural wonders to horrifying human catastrophes. The self-taught photographer crisscrossed the globe throughout his life, from Rwanda to Guatemala, from Indonesia to Bangladesh, documenting famine, war, exodus, exploitation and other tragedies of the so-called Third World with the empathy of "someone who comes from the same part of the world," as he said. His elegant black-and-white universe also celebrated the planet's immense beauty, such as the "flying rivers" of the Amazon rainforest, and served as a warning of nature's fragility in the face of climate change. Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art He leaves an iconic body of work, published in "Life," "Time" and other leading magazines, collected in a stunning series of books, and regularly exhibited in the museums of world capitals such as Paris, where he lived for much of his life. Salgado won a long list of prestigious prizes across his career, including the Prince of Asturias and Hasselblad awards, and was the protagonist of filmmaker Wim Wenders' Oscar-nominated documentary "The Salt of the Earth" (2014), about the photographer's sojourns in distant corners such as the Arctic Circle and Papua New Guinea. Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art - From Africa to Reagan - Born on February 8, 1944 in the rural county of Aimores in southeastern Brazil, Salgado grew up with seven sisters on their father's cattle farm. He recalled it as a place where visiting friends and family meant traveling for days, which he said taught him the patience to wait for the magical "fraction of a second" of the perfect photograph. He earned a master's degree in economics from the University of Sao Paulo, where he was active in the left-wing student movements of the turbulent 1960s. In 1969, he and his wife, Lelia Wanick, fled to France to escape Brazil's military dictatorship. He went on to receive French citizenship. He picked up Wanick's camera by chance one day in 1970 and was instantly hooked. "I realized snapshots brought me more pleasure than economic reports," he said. His job with the International Coffee Organization took him frequently to Africa, where he started taking pictures on the side. He would go on to turn down a dream job at the World Bank in Washington to pursue photography full-time. Wanick, who staunchly backed his career, stayed home raising their two sons, Juliano Ribeiro and Rodrigo, who was born with Down syndrome. Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art Salgado's photos of drought and famine in countries such as Niger and Ethiopia landed him a job at renowned photo agency Magnum in 1979. He was working there when he captured one of the biggest news stories of the time, the assassination attempt on US president Ronald Reagan in 1981. Salgado made front pages worldwide with his photos of the shooting -- 76 frames in 60 seconds. But his true rise to fame came with his first book, "Other Americas" (1984) -- a series of portraits taken throughout Latin America -- and his unforgettable photographs of misery and resistance among the hordes of mud-covered miners at Brazil's infamous Serra Pelada, the biggest open-air gold mine in the world. Critics accused him of "beautifying suffering," but Salgado never veered from his aesthetic or his work. Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art Sebastiao Salgado, photojournalism elevated to art - Lens on Bolsonaro - Painstaking and meticulous, he liked to take his time getting to know his subjects, his three Leica cameras hanging from his neck. Photography "is a way of life," he told AFP in 2022, on a trip to Sao Paulo to present his exhibition "Amazonia," the product of seven years shooting the world's biggest rainforest. "It's connected with my ideology... my human and political activity. It all goes together." A dedicated climate activist, he was a fierce critic of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) for the far-right leader's push to open the Amazon to agribusiness and mining. Salgado also founded an environmental organization called Instituto Terra to revive disappearing forests in his home state, Minas Gerais, a successful project joined by more than 3,000 landowners. —AFP
Straits Times
6 days ago
- General
- Straits Times
Sebastiao Salgado, acclaimed Brazilian photographer, dies at 81
Brazilian photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado among his works on show at the exhibition, Amazonia: Photographs By Sebastiao Salgado at the National Museum of Singapore, in November 2024. PHOTO: ST FILE Rio de Janeiro - Sebastiao Salgado, a celebrated Brazilian photographer whose striking images of humanity and nature in the Amazon rainforest and beyond won him some of the world's top honours and made him a household name, died on May 23 in Paris. He was 81. His death was announced by Instituto Terra, the environmental nonprofit that he and his wife founded in Brazil. His family cited leukemia as the cause, saying that Salgado had developed the illness after contracting a particular type of malaria in 2010 while working on a photography project in Indonesia. 'Through the lens of his camera, Sebastiao tirelessly fought for a more just, humane and ecological world,' Salgado's family said in a statement. 'Rich in humanistic content, this work offers a sensitive perspective on the most disadvantaged populations and addresses the environmental issues threatening our planet.' Working mostly in black and white, Salgado garnered widespread acclaim at home and abroad with his striking images of the natural world and the human condition, often travelling around the globe to photograph impoverished and vulnerable communities. In all, he worked in more than 120 countries throughout his career. Salgado was especially interested in the plight of workers and migrants, and spent decades documenting nature and people in the Amazon rainforest. He captured some of his most well-known images in 1986, when he photographed workers toiling in a gold mine in the northern Brazilian state of Para. The photo essay cemented Salgado's reputation as one of the star photographers of his time. In the 1980s, Salgado also moved audiences worldwide with a series of pictures depicting the famine in Ethiopia. That work earned him worldwide recognition and won some of photography's most prestigious awards. In 1991, while on assignment in Kuwait, Salgado photographed workers struggling to extinguish oil-well fires set by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's troops, an environmental disaster that came to define Iraq's turbulent retreat from Kuwait. 'The photos were beyond extraordinary,' said Ms Kathy Ryan, a former photo director at The New York Times Magazine, who worked with Salgado on that assignment. 'It was one of the best photo essays ever made.' His Kuwait photos were featured on the cover of the magazine. On another noteworthy assignment, Salgado documented dramatic scenes following a failed assassination attempt on then United States President Ronald Reagan in 1981. He photographed the gunman John Hinckley Jr, moments after he was tackled to the ground. 'Everyone knows he had an incredible way of making pictures,' Ms Ryan said. But, she added, he also had an uncanny sense of 'where important stories were'. Known for his intense blue-eyed gaze and his rapid way of speaking, Salgado was remembered by his colleagues as a defender of documenting the human condition who respected the people he photographed. He was at times criticised for cloaking human suffering and environmental catastrophe in a visually stunning aesthetic, but Salgado maintained that his way of capturing people was not exploitative. 'Why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world?' he asked in an interview with British newspaper The Guardian in 2024. 'The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there.' Over the course of his career, Salgado's work won some of photography's top prizes, including two Leica Oskar Barnack Awards and several World Press Photo awards. He was named an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992 and the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2016. Sebastiao Ribeiro Salgado Jr was born on Feb 8, 1944, in Aimores, in the countryside of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The only son of a cattle-ranching family, he had seven sisters. While studying at university in the 1960s, he met his future wife Lelia Deluiz Wanick. When a military dictatorship came into power in Brazil a few years later, the couple moved to France. His wife survives him, as do two sons, Juliano and Rodrigo, and two grandchildren. An economist by training, Salgado discovered photography while working for the World Bank and travelling to Africa. He began his career as a freelance photographer in 1973 and quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the most renowned photographers at the Magnum collective. In 1994, Salgado left Magnum to form his own agency together with his wife and longtime collaborator. He later spent years travelling across the Amazon. He captured arresting images of vast rivers and rainforests while also documenting the impact of human beings on natural landscapes and the Indigenous people fighting to preserve them. In the late 1990s, Salgado and his wife founded Instituto Terra in the region where he was born, with the aim of restoring the Atlantic Forest, which had been ravaged by human encroachment. Salgado's 'vision and humanity', American photographer and photojournalist Steve McCurry posted on Instagram, 'left an indelible mark on the world of photography'. NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Star
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
French-Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado dies aged 81
Sebastiao Salgado, famed for his immense body of work depicting wildlife, landscapes and people around the world, died on May 23 aged 81. Photo: AFP French-Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, famed for his immense body of work depicting wildlife, landscapes and people around the world, died on Friday (May 23) aged 81, announced the French Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was a member. The academy said it was "deeply saddened to announce the death... of Sebastiao Salgado", describing him as a "great witness to the human condition and the state of the planet". It was his large black-and-white photographs of subjects such as conflicts or the Amazon rainforest that won Salgado the greatest fame and adorned calendars, books and the walls of his fans around the world. Critics accused him of beautifying suffering but Salgado never veered from his aesthetic or his work. "A photographer who travelled the world constantly, he contracted a particular form of malaria in 2010, in Indonesia," his family said in a statement to AFP. "Fifteen years later, the complications of this disease developed into severe leukaemia, which took his life," they added. 'Emblematic figure' Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described his compatriot as "one of the best... photographers the world has given us". Lula, who learned the news of Salgado's passing at an official event in Brasilia with Angolan counterpart Joao Lourenco, asked attendees to observed a minute's silence for the photographer. One of Salgado's contemporaries, US photographer Steve McCurry, wrote on Instagram that "his vision and humanity left an indelible mark on the world of photography". "Alongside (his wife) Lelia (Wanick), he not only documented the human condition with unmatched depth, but also helped heal the planet through their reforestation work," he added. Unesco Secretary General Audrey Azoulay saluted "an immense photographer, artist and documentarist whose talent captured the ecological and anthropological upheavals of our era. "His art raised public awareness of often unknown realities such as those of the Amazon and its indigenous peoples," she added in posts to social media. Paris-based media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders (RSF) paid tribute to an "emblematic figure of documentary photography". "A photographer of all records, Sebastiao Salgado was a keen observer of mankind and nature," it added in a statement online. RSF noted that Salgado had contributed 100 of his own photos to one of the albums it sells to raise money for it works. 'Way of life' The photographer leaves a unique legacy of images from his hundreds of journeys through the Amazon rainforest and across the planet, from Rwanda to Indonesia, from Guatemala to Bangladesh, capturing with his lens human tragedies such as famine, wars and mass exoduses. Salgado conceived photography as "a powerful language to try to establish better relationships between humans and nature", said the French Academy of Fine Arts. He worked almost exclusively in black and white, which he saw as both an interpretation of reality and a way of conveying the fundamental dignity of humanity. Active in the left-wing student movements of the turbulent 1960s, he studied economics and in 1969, he and his wife fled to France to escape Brazil's military dictatorship. He went on to receive French citizenship. His photos of drought and famine in countries such as Niger and Ethiopia landed him a job at renowned photo agency Magnum in 1979. Photography "is a way of life," he told AFP in 2022, on a trip to Sao Paulo to present his exhibition Amazonia, the product of seven years shooting the world's biggest rainforest. A dedicated climate activist, he was a fierce critic of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) for the far-right leader's push to open the Amazon to agribusiness and mining. Salgado also founded an environmental organisation called Instituto Terra to revive disappearing forests in his home state, Minas Gerais, a successful project joined by more than 3,000 landowners. - AFP
Time of India
7 days ago
- General
- Time of India
Sebastiao Salgado, acclaimed Brazilian photographer, is dead
Sebastiao Salgado (AP) Sebastiao Salgado, a celebrated Brazilian photographer whose striking images of humanity and nature in the Amazon rainforest and beyond won him some of the world's top honours and made him a household name, died Friday in Paris. He was 81. His death was announced by Instituto Terra, the environmental nonprofit that he and his wife founded in Brazil. His family cited leukemia as the cause, saying that Salgado had developed the illness after contracting a particular type of malaria in 2010 while working on a photography project in Indonesia. "Through the lens of his camera, Sebastiao tirelessly fought for a more just, humane and ecological world," Salgado's family said in a statement. Working mostly in black and white, Salgado garnered widespread acclaim at home and abroad with his striking images of the natural world and the human condition, often travelling around the globe to photograph impoverished and vulnerable communities. In all, he worked in more than 120 countries throughout his career. Salgado was especially interested in the plight of workers and migrants, and spent decades documenting nature and people in the Amazon rainforest. He captured some of his most well-known images in 1986, when he photographed workers toiling in a gold mine in northern Brazil. The photo essay was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine and cemented Salgado's reputation as one of the star photographers of his time. In the 1980s, Salgado also moved audiences worldwide with a series of pictures depicting the famine in Ethiopia. That work earned him worldwide recognition and won some of photography's most prestigious awards. In 1991, while on assignment in Kuwait, Salgado photographed workers struggling to extinguish oil-well fires set by Saddam Hussein's troops, an environmental disaster that came to define Iraq's turbulent retreat from Kuwait. "The photos were beyond extraordinary," said Kathy Ryan, a former photo director at The New York Times Magazine, who worked with him on that assignment. "It was one of the best photo essays ever made. " On another noteworthy assignment, Salgado documented dramatic scenes following a failed assassination bid on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. He photographed the gunman, John Hinckley Jr, moments after he was tackled to the ground. "He had an uncanny sense of where important stories were," said Ryan. Known for his intense blue-eyed gaze and his rapid way of speaking, Salgado was remembered by his colleagues as a defender of documenting the human condition who respected the people he photographed. He was at times criticised for cloaking human suffering and environmental catastrophe in a visually stunning aesthetic, but Salgado maintained that his way of capturing people was not exploitative. "Why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world?" he asked in an interview with The Guardian in 2024. "The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there." Over the course of his career, Salgado's work won some of photography's top prizes, including two Leica Oskar Barnack Awards and several World Press Photo awards. Sebastiao Ribeiro Salgado Jr was born Feb 8, 1944, in Aimores, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. An economist by training, Salgado discovered photography while working for the World Bank and traveling to Africa.
Gulf Today
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Legendary French-Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado dies at 81
French-Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, famed for his immense body of work depicting wildlife, landscapes and people around the world, died on Friday aged 81, announced the French Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was a member. The academy said it was "deeply saddened to announce the death... of Sebastiao Salgado", describing him as a "great witness to the human condition and the state of the planet". It was his large black-and-white photographs of subjects such as conflicts or the Amazon rainforest that won Salgado the greatest fame and adorned calendars, books and the walls of his fans around the world. Critics accused him of beautifying suffering but Salgado never veered from his aesthetic or his work. Sebastiao Salgado with his wife Lelia Wanick Salgado. AFP "A photographer who travelled the world constantly, he contracted a particular form of malaria in 2010, in Indonesia," his family said in a statement to AFP. "Fifteen years later, the complications of this disease developed into severe leukaemia, which took his life," they added. 'Emblematic figure' Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described his compatriot as "one of the best... photographers the world has given us". Lula, who learned the news of Salgado's passing at an official event in Brasilia with Angolan counterpart Joao Lourenco, asked attendees to observed a minute's silence for the photographer. Men walk next to a banner from an upcoming exhibition of Sebastiao Salgado displayed at the Casa Firjan cultural centre in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday. AFP Paris-based media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders (RSF) paid tribute to an "emblematic figure of documentary photography". "A photographer of all records, Sebastiao Salgado was a keen observer of mankind and nature," it added in a statement online. RSF noted that Salgado had contributed 100 of his own photos to one of the albums it sells to raise money for its works. UNESCO Secretary General Audrey Azoulay saluted "an immense photographer, artist and documentarist whose talent captured the ecological and anthropological upheavals of our era. "His art raised public awareness of often unknown realities such as those of the Amazon and its indigenous peoples," she added in posts to social media. Mostly black and white pictures The photographer leaves a unique legacy of images from his hundreds of journeys through the Amazon rainforest and across the planet, from Rwanda to Indonesia, from Guatemala to Bangladesh, capturing with his lens human tragedies such as famine, wars and mass exoduses. Sebastiao Salgado poses in front of one of the pictures of his 'Amazonia' exhibition in Milan, Italy. AP Salgado conceived photography as "a powerful language to try to establish better relationships between humans and nature", said the French Academy of Fine Arts. He worked almost exclusively in black and white, which he saw as both an interpretation of reality and a way of conveying the fundamental dignity of humanity. Active in the left-wing student movements of the turbulent 1960s, he studied economics and in 1969, he and his wife, Lelia Wanick, fled to France to escape Brazil's military dictatorship. He went on to receive French citizenship. His photos of drought and famine in countries such as Niger and Ethiopia landed him a job at renowned photo agency Magnum in 1979. A visitor sits in front of a series of children portraits in the exhibition 'Exodus' by Sebastiao Salgado in the Kunsthalle (Art Hall) in Erfurt, central Germany. File/Associated Press Photography "is a way of life," he told AFP in 2022, on a trip to Sao Paulo to present his exhibition "Amazonia," the product of seven years shooting the world's biggest rainforest. A dedicated climate activist, he was a fierce critic of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) for the far-right leader's push to open the Amazon to agribusiness and mining. Salgado also founded an environmental organisation called Instituto Terra to revive disappearing forests in his home state, Minas Gerais, a successful project joined by more than 3,000 landowners.
