RIP Sebastião Salgado

RIP Sebastião Salgado February 8, 1944 - May 23, 2025

“I believe at least that we must try to go back to the planet, probably not to live more inside the forests—that won’t happen. But we must, at least spiritually, go back into the planet. Feel that we are part of the planet. Add to the beautiful part of the planet, not destroy it. We have money, we have technology; we must have a spiritual comeback to the planet, being part of the planet. If we do this, we can control a majority of the carbon emissions that we have. If you control the quantity of the emissions, we can reduce them. We can use solar energy. We can use the movement of the world, the wind, so many things, to produce energy. We can change our concept of consumption.” via Aperture

If you are not familiar with his work, you can see a selection of his photographs on ICP.

I strongly recommend The Salt of the Earth, a film about him from 2014 directed by Wim Wenders. I first saw it at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and my jaw dropped at the opening scene.

Below is the trailer, and the film is available to watch for free on Internet Archive.