Award-winning Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado passes away at age 81 | World News

Sebastião Salgado, the Brazilian photographer known around the world for his black-and-white images of people, nature and migration, has died at the age of 81. His family said on Friday that he passed away due to leukemia, a condition that developed from complications linked to malaria he caught while working in Indonesia in 2010.“Through the lens of his camera, Sebastião tirelessly fought for a more just, humane, and ecological world,” his family said in a statement reported the Associated Press (AP).
Salgado became ill with a specific form of malaria while photographing for his “Genesis” project. His family said this illness later led to serious health problems, including the leukemia that caused his death 15 years later.
Story continues below this ad

His death was first shared Instituto Terra, the environmental organisation he started with his wife, and the French Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was a member. Neither group gave details on where he died.
“Sebastião was more than one of the best photographers of our time,” Instituto Terra said, as quoted AP. “His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life brought the power of transformative action.”
Salgado’s life and work were shown in the 2014 documentary The Salt of the Earth, co-directed German filmmaker Wim Wenders and Salgado’s son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.
Born in 1944 in Aimorés, a small town in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, Salgado originally trained as an econom and moved to France in 1969 during Brazil’s military dictatorship. He began working as a full-time photographer in 1973. He became known for his work in black-and-white photography, focusing on labour, migration, poverty and the environment.Story continues below this ad
His major projects include Workers, which captured manual labour across the globe, Exodus (also known as Migrations or Sahel), which showed people fleeing their homes, and Amazonia, his most recent series focused on the Amazon rainforest.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had long received Salgado’s support, called for a minute of silence in Brasília in his honour. “Salgado did not only use his eyes and his camera to portray people: he also used the fullness of his soul and his heart,” the president said, as quoted AP. “His work served as a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity.”
Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, spent decades working on reforestation in Brazil. In 1998, they created Instituto Terra to promote environmental restoration and education. The couple also founded the photo agency Amazonas Images to manage his work.
Salgado received several awards during his career. He became an honorary member of the US Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992 and joined the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2016.Story continues below this ad
“He leaves behind a monumental body of work,” said French composer Alain Petitgirard, secretary of the Academy, in a statement reported AP.
Composer François-Bernard Mâche, who collaborated with Salgado on a Paris exhibition, told AP,  “His gaze transformed landscapes… With him, photography fulfilled one of its highest ambitions going far beyond mere appearances.”
Salgado is survived his wife and two sons, Juliano and Rodrigo. His recent health problems led him to cancel a public event in Reims, France, where he was due to attend an exhibition featuring his son Rodrigo’s work.
In an interview with Forbes Brasil shortly before his death, Salgado said: “How many times in my life have I put my camera to the side and sat down to cry? Sometimes it was too dramatic, and I was alone. That’s the power of the photographer; to be able to be there.”