Photographer Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado dies at the age of 81

São Paulo. Award-winning Brazilian photographer and environmentalist Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado has died at the age of 81. The Instituto Terra, founded by him and his wife, confirmed the artist's death on Friday but did not provide further details on the circumstances.

"Sebastião was more than just one of the best photographers of our time," the institute stated. "His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life brought the power of transformative action." Salgado's style was characterized by black-and-white images, a strong tonality, and emotionally charged scenarios. He portrayed people and animals, but also scenes from nature.

His major works include the recent series "Amazonia," "Workers," which depicts manual labor around the world, and "Exodus," which documents people on their journey, including refugees and slum dwellers. In 2019, he received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, founded Amazonas Images, an agency dedicated exclusively to his work.

Salgado's life and work were portrayed in the documentary "The Salt of the Earth" (2014), directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, the photographer's son. Salgado lived in Paris for many years and began devoting himself entirely to photography in 1973, years after completing his economics studies.

RND/AP