Sebastian Salgado discovered artphotos almost by accident. Once he worked as an economist. And now it is considered one of the most successful and famous photographers on the planet Earth. How did his fate go like this? How did he go to his success? All this you can read in the article.
Youth
Sebastian Salgado was born on February 8, 1944 inthe small town of Imorese, where there were only sixteen thousand inhabitants. In those years, about seventy percent of the area of this region was occupied by forest, which is now considered the "lungs of the planet." Then the territory of the Brazilian selva was twice as large, say, France. Now the area of this forest is only seven percent of its original size. When Sebastian was young, his hometown could offer him only elementary school. Therefore, in order to study further, he had to leave him and leave for Vitoria, the capital of Espirito Santo state. There he graduated from high school in 1962 and entered the university. After receiving a diploma in 1967, he married Lelia Deluius Vanik.
Maturity
Sebastian Salgado soon became the father of twoboys - Giuliano and Rodrigo. However, a great test awaited him. The younger son was a terrible disease - Down syndrome. The family moved to Sao Paulo, where Sebastian received another master's degree in economics, and his wife completed a musical education. She graduated from the conservatory as a pianist.
Then, in 1969, they moved to Europe, andjust to Paris. There, Sebastian worked on his doctoral thesis, and Lelia began to study at the architect. In 1971, the family again changes their place of residence. Sebastian is invited to work as an economist for the International Coffee Organization. He travels a lot by participating in various missions sponsored by the World Bank. Especially often he was in Africa. It was there that he began to take his first photographs.
New career
One day, returning to London from the nexttraveling, Sebastian Salgado realized that the pictures taken by him were dragging him down more and more. He even decided to abandon the economy in order to devote his life to photography. Therefore, he and his wife returned to Paris, which they considered the only city suitable for this occupation. He initially worked as a freelancer, but since 1974 Sebastian has joined the Sigma agency. It sent him to Portugal, Angola and Mozambique, where the photographer gradually honed his art.
Then he changed his employer.The new agency, Gamma, gave him the opportunity to travel across almost all of Europe, Africa and Latin America. At this time, his wife graduated from education and acquired the profession of urban planner. In 1977, Sebastian began working on a huge series of photographs devoted to the life of Indians and peasants in Latin America.
Humanitarian missions
In 1979, the photographer again changed jobs.He was hired by the Magnum Corporation, to which he dedicated fifteen years of life. At this time, he not only became famous for his reports from different countries and pictures, published in the most prestigious magazines in the world, but finally completed his epic about the life of ordinary people in the south of the Americas. On its basis in 1984, he published the first book. It was called "Other America" and was released simultaneously in the United States, France and Spain.
So Sebastian Salgado, whose photosmade him a world celebrity, found his true path in life. He tried to talk about the situation of poor people and helped them, including the fact that he had worked for two years with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, recording on their instructions the terrible scenes of famine in Africa. He published two books under the title “Sahel” - “Man in Despair” and “End of the Road”, and also organized many photo exhibitions. So he supported the work of "Doctors without Borders."
“Workers” and “Migrations”
In 1986-1992, Sebastian Salgado visitedtwenty-three countries to create a series of hard work on manual labor. They were published in 1993 in the book Workers. This work has sold around 100,000 copies in the world, and an exhibition of photographs has been held in more than 60 museums.
As a continuation of the Workers, the master beginsthe next series of shots called "Migrations". This project brought him to 43 countries. He traveled across continents to show the fate of people forced to leave the countryside in order to move to the cities. For example, he took down nine megalopolises, whose population has dramatically increased in recent decades. His photographs from the Portraits of Children of Migrations series were very popular. Based on these photographs, posters were made, new books were published, special training programs were created, and the exhibitions were seen by three million people.
But Sebastian Salgado, whose biography has becomeThe topic of our little research would not have been able to cope with all this without the help of my wife. It was she who was the main creative element of the whole popularization of her husband's art. Therefore, in 1994, they decided to create their own business.
Amazonaz Imedges
Perhaps this agency can be called the mostsmallest in the world. But it was here that Sebastian Salgado and his wife were able to fully develop their activities devoted to uncovering the dark sides of modern society, the horrors of war, the sufferings of poor and hungry people, far from the prosperous life of rich countries. Masters may well be called the author of social photography. In the center of his art are noble faces, although often distorted by suffering. All his characters have a deep inner world, which only emphasizes the competent composition of frames and the ability to play with light and shadow. Although some publicists blamed him for the aestheticization of pain, in fact, Sebastian is simply trying to draw attention to problems that no one wants to see, to force him to solve the problems of that part of humanity that everyone has long given up on.
"Being" and other projects
From 2004 to 2011, the photographer worked ona huge series of pictures called "Genesis". In the Russian-speaking environment, the project is often referred to as "Being". Perhaps this is the most ambitious work that Sebastian Salgado did. Animals and people, wildlife and human communities, enmity and harmony, birth and death are all present in this amazing photo story about traditional tribes and cultures that refused to follow the path of modern civilization and technological progress.
And in 2007, the artist created the project "Coffee", whereHe showed how the price creates a popular drink on plantations in Brazil, India, Guatemala and other countries. Together with his wife, Sebastiano is trying to restore the lost Atlantic forest in his homeland. He created a special "Instituto Terra", with which he managed to turn this part of Brazil into a reserve. The photographer received many world awards and became a goodwill ambassador to UNICEF. Even in the cinematography left a mark Sebastian Salgado. The film about him “The Salt of the Earth” (2014), which was shot by Wim Wenders and the son of the photographer Julianu Salgado, won the Cannes Film Festival award.
