Sebastião Salgado, a graduate in economics, began his career as a photographer in 1973 in Paris, where he worked for the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma and Magnum Photos. He subsequently set up his own business with his partner in life and work, Lélia Wanick Salgado. For his photographic projects, he has travelled to more than 100 countries; these have been presented not only in countless publications in the international press but also in several books and exhibitions conceived and designed by Lélia, such as ‘Sahel, l’homme en détresse’, ‘Other Americas’, ‘Workers’, “Terra”, “Exodus”, “Africa”, “Genesis”, “Gold” and “Amazônia”. He was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de France, a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, and an Honorary Doctor of Harvard University (USA). His most significant awards include the Primo Levi Prize (Italy), the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and the Praemium Imperiale Prize of the Japan Art Association, which is regarded as the Nobel Prize of the arts.
In 1998, he and Lélia founded the Instituto Terra in Brazil, a non-profit civil organisation dedicated to reforestation, environmental education and sustainable rural development in the Rio Doce Valley in the state of Minas Gerais. Today, Instituto Terra has created a forest rich in a variety of flora and fauna endemic to the Atlantic Rainforest and has planted more than 3 million trees.
In 2021, the couple launched their latest project: a book and a major photographic exhibition on the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous communities, who are working to preserve the biodiversity that is so vital to the planet and to protect these endangered populations.
On 23 May 2025, Sebastião Salgado died in Paris at the age of 81.