Sebastiao Salgado Quotes & Sayings

In the end, the only heritage we have is our planet, and I have decided to go to the most pristine places on the planet and photograph them in the most honest way I know, with my point of view, and of course it is in black and white, because it is the only thing I know how to do. — Sebastiao Salgado

When I was starting out, when I put aside my career as an economist. I looked at every book, went to every show, did my first stories, developed my first films. A fabulous time. — Sebastiao Salgado

It is a great honor for me to be compared to Henri Cartier-BressonBut I believe there is a very big difference in the way we put ourselves inside the stories we photograph. He always strove for the decisive moment as being the most important. I always work for a group of pictures, to tell a story. If you ask which picture in a story I like most, it is impossible for me to tell you this. I don't work for an individual picture. If I must select one individual picture for a client, it is very difficult for me. — Sebastiao Salgado

When I was just starting out, I met Cartier-Bresson. He wasn't young in age but, in his mind, he was the youngest person I'd ever met. He told me it was necessary to trust my instincts, be inside my work, and set aside my ego. In the end, my photography turned out very different to his, but I believe we were coming from the same place. — Sebastiao Salgado

There comes a moment when it is no longer you who takes the photograph, but receives the way to do it quite naturally and fully. — Sebastiao Salgado

We live in a society where we never prepare people to be a community. — Sebastiao Salgado

As in any person's life, there have been difficult moments: I have a son with Down's syndrome; through my photography, I have witnessed all manner of human degradation. But there have also been very happy moments. — Sebastiao Salgado

We are living in a moment where we have broken the equilibrium of the planet. We are not paying attention to our intuitive side. We only pay attention to our reason. We have become an urban animal — Sebastiao Salgado

So many times I've photographed stories that show the degradation of the planet. I had one idea to go and photograph the factories that were polluting, and to see all the deposits of garbage. But, in the end, I thought the only way to give us an incentive, to bring hope, is to show the pictures of the pristine planet - to see the innocence. — Sebastiao Salgado

I work alone. Humans are incredible, because when you come alone, they will receive you, they accept you, they protect you, they give you all things that you need, and they teach you all things you must know. When you come with two persons or three persons, you have a group in front of them. They don't discuss with the new persons what is important to them ... — Sebastiao Salgado

I'm not a religious person. The language of photography is symbolic. — Sebastiao Salgado

Of course, I won't be abandoning photography, because it is my life. — Sebastiao Salgado

The picture is not made by the photographer, the picture is more good or less good in function of the relationship that you have with the people you photograph. — Sebastiao Salgado

It is important what you eat now, what you do now. If we were interested in a sustainable planet where other generations have a right to a decent future, we would not live like this. — Sebastiao Salgado

I work on stories rather than individual pictures. — Sebastiao Salgado

For me, art is such a wide concept - anything can be art. — Sebastiao Salgado

My way of photographing is my way of life. I photograph from my experience, my way of seeing things ... — Sebastiao Salgado

I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions. — Sebastiao Salgado

I can be an artist a posteriori, not a priori. If my pictures tell the story, our story, human story, then in a hundred years, then they can be considered an art reference, but now they are not made as art. I'm a journalist. My life's on the road, my studio is the planet. — Sebastiao Salgado

I have been photographing the portrait of an end of an era, as machines and computers replace human workers. What we have in these pictures is an archeology. — Sebastiao Salgado

Most of the information we now get is through television and is mutilated. Photography offers the opportunity to spend much more time on a topic. It's relatively cheaper medium, and can allow a photographer really to live in another place, show another reality, get closer to the truth. — Sebastiao Salgado

Photography is full of symbolism, it's a symbolic language. You have to be able to materialize all your thoughts in one single image. — Sebastiao Salgado

You photograph with all your ideology. — Sebastiao Salgado

It's more important for a photographer to have very good shoes, than to have a very good camera — Sebastiao Salgado

In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen. — Sebastiao Salgado

The light in Alaska in particular is so beautiful. So beautiful! Such incredible light. — Sebastiao Salgado

I believe that the average person can help a lot, not by giving material goods but by participating, by being part of the discussion, by being truly concerned about what is going on in the world. — Sebastiao Salgado

Of course I will continue photography. I love photography. But when you become old, it's too much. — Sebastiao Salgado

It's not the photographer who makes the picture, but the person being photographed. — Sebastiao Salgado

There are moments that you suffer a lot, moments you won't photograph. There are some people you like better than others. But you give, you receive, you cherish, you are there. When you are really there, you know when you see the picture later what you are seeing. — Sebastiao Salgado

I photographed with film for many years; now that I work in digital, the difference is enormous. The quality is unbelievable: I don't use flash, and with digital I can even work in very bad light. Also, it's a relief not to lose photographs to x-ray machines in airports. — Sebastiao Salgado

I don't want anyone to appreciate the light or the palette of tones. I want my pictures to inform, to provoke discussion - and to raise money. — Sebastiao Salgado

I looked through a lens and ended up abandoning everything else. — Sebastiao Salgado

The problem is, we live in a society where all that interests us is power and money. So we don't have any interest in our children, and what we leave for our children is not important. — Sebastiao Salgado

I'm not an artist. An artist makes an object. Me, it's not an object, I work in history, I'm a storyteller. — Sebastiao Salgado

I have tried to bring about better communication between people. I believe that humanitarian photography is like economics. Economy is a kind of sociology, as is documentary photography. — Sebastiao Salgado

I am a former economist. I never went to photography school to learn photography. — Sebastiao Salgado

! discovered photography completely by chance. My wife is an architect; when we were young and living in Paris, she bought a camera to take pictures of buildings. For the first time, I looked through a lens - and photography immediately started to invade my life. — Sebastiao Salgado

We are animals, born from the land with the other species. Since we've been living in cities, we've become more and more stupid, not smarter. What made us survive all these hundreds of thousands of years is our spirituality; the link to our land. — Sebastiao Salgado

I have two children. I have a Down syndrome child whom I love very much, and my wife that I love. — Sebastiao Salgado

What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. — Sebastiao Salgado

I have a way to photograph. You work with space, you have a camera, you have a frame, and then a fraction of a second. It's very instinctive. What you do is a fraction of a second, it's there and it's not there. But in this fraction of a second comes your past, comes your future, comes your relation with people, comes your ideology, comes your hate, comes your love - all together in this fraction of a second, it materializes there. — Sebastiao Salgado

If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture ...
If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things. — Sebastiao Salgado

I tell a little bit of my life to them, and they tell a little of theirs to me. The picture itself is just the tip of the iceberg. — Sebastiao Salgado

Photography has become a small world with so many jealous people. You do a story and then a lot of people try to do the same thing. — Sebastiao Salgado

What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures. Nothing more than this. I don't want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph. — Sebastiao Salgado

More than ever, I feel that the human race is one. There are differences of colour, language, culture and opportunities, but people's feelings and reactions are alike. People flee wars to escape death, they migrate to improve their fortunes, they build new lives in foreign lands, they adapt to extreme hardship ... . — Sebastiao Salgado

When you work fast, what you put in your pictures is what your brought with yoiu - your own ideas and concepts. When you spend more time on a project, you learn to understand your subjects. There comes a time when it is not you who is taking the pictures. Something special happens between the photographer and the people he is photographing. He realizes that they are giving the pictures to him. — Sebastiao Salgado

I don't believe a person has a style. What people have is a way of photographing what is inside them. What is there comes out. — Sebastiao Salgado

We are one human race, and there must be understanding among all men. For those who look at the problems of today, my big hope is that they understand. That they understand that the population is quite big enough, that they must be informed that they must have economic development, that they must have social development, and must be integrated into all parts of the world. — Sebastiao Salgado

I discovered that close to half the planet is 'pristine.' We live in towns such as London, Paris or Sao Paulo and have the impression that all the pristine areas are gone, but they are not. — Sebastiao Salgado

The language that photography has is a formal language. Any photographer is doing something formal. If it's formal, then it must be an aesthetic way to communicate. — Sebastiao Salgado