Photo credit: Wiki Commons
I never met Sebastião Salgado personally, but I knew his work for many years. It’s impossible for me to condense his life work in a few words. To say that he was a photojournalist and documentary photographer would not give his life’s work the justice it deserves. In fact, it’s impossible to really portray Salgado unless you look at his photographs (link at bottom).
Salgado’s camera powerfully captured capitalism’s exploitation of the poor and its effect on the environment. His photos are not objective. Salgado was more interested in telling the truth he saw – the reality he saw – and he wanted to show the world his reality and truth. And he did that hoping to inspire, to motivate people to act. He was a true concerned photographer.
After Salgado’s death on 23 May 2025, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s President said of him, “His discontent with the fact that the world is so unequal and his obstinate talent in portraying the reality of the oppressed always served as a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity.”
That’s the photographer I knew, not personally, but through his lens and the images he captured–images whose message could not be ignored.
As a fellow social documentary photographer and photojournalist I will always admire his work and hope that people take action on what he saw. That is why we do this work, because that is what is necessary.
¡Sebastião Salgado, presente!
–Orin Langelle, 3 June 2025, Cattaraugus County, NY
To see to Salgado speaking about his photography, watch this short film: Photos That Changed Sebastião Salgado’s Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVyorCkReLM
Also an article from Aljazeera on Salgado’s death: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/23/a-lens-on-poverty-and-the-environment-sebastiao-salgado-is-dead-at-age-81