Sebastião Salgado

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0:11Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which the world's leading creative figures reveal the most important influences and experiences that inspired their own work. I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the Brazilian-born photographer Sebastião Salgado. Known for his dramatic black-and-white landscape images, he's documented scenes of hardship and desperation in times of war and famine. He's explored global labour and migration, and he's captured the wonders of the natural world. Salgado, who's worked in more than 120 countries over the last 50 years, and is now regarded as one of the all-time greats of photography.

0:49His images are in the collections of museums and galleries around the world. he won the prestigious Premium Imperiale Arts Prize in 2021 and was the 2024 recipient of the Sony World Photography Award for Outstanding Achievement. Sebastien Salgado, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you very much. My pleasure. You were born in 1944 and you grew up on your father's farm in a very remote part of Brazil. What are your overriding memories of that childhood? Well, I believe that I grew up in the paradise. It was so nice. Half of the farm of my parents were rainforests with a lot of wild animals, a lot of cattle.

1:36My father had a large number of farms, and we concentrated. Once a year, the cattle from the other farms in one farm more close to the town. and from there we went by horse to bring this cattle to this slaughterhouse. It was a long trip, about 50 days in horse. That's to go and to come was much more fast because we had no cattle to carry. It was about 20 days. And we had more than two months in horse to go and to come back. It was amazing. It was very nice. It was fabulous. Did you think it was paradise at the time then? Because you had nothing to compare it to in the outside world. Now, the only thing that bring the outside world for us was the music.

2:24The music bring all the information about the northeast of Brazil, the beats of the northeast. Because my father had a radio, the only radio in the region had one battery, a car battery, that every two weeks they bring this battery by horse to the town to be charged and bring back the battery. and we hear this music. It was amazing.

3:01As a photographer, you are renowned for your vast panoramic landscapes. And even though you didn't start taking photographs until much later, until in your 20s, your characteristic aesthetic that we know, that we think of when we think of a Salgado photograph? Do you think it's there rooted in that farm? Completely. Yeah. Completely. You see, we came from a very hilly area. The farm of my father had very high points. And I remember when I was a child, my father bring me to the highest point of this farm in the middle of October, when was the beginning of the rain season, to see arrive the rains.

3:41It was so amazing. It was so beautiful. seeing these sections of real areas and with the rain in between here and tens of kilometers far away and seeing all the sire. And I'm 100 % sure that I started to press the button of the camera many years later, but the photograph was being built inside me in this moment. That's fascinating because those images of the rain arriving from many miles away, I mean, there are photographs that exist of that. that huge curtain of cloud. Oh boy, when I see this, I'm so happy, so excited. I can capture them very well because they are inside my soul.

4:30On This Cultural Life, Sebastiao Salgado, my guests choose the most significant influences and experiences that have shaped their own creativity. And one of your most important moments is leaving that farm, that remote part of Brazil in 1960 and heading to the city of Vitoria. Why have you chosen this as such a significant moment for you? You see, I did the first half of secondary school in a small town beside the farm. But it was necessary to complete the secondary school, to go to a town where I have a secondary school. And I went to Vitoria. Vitoria is the capital of the state of Espírito Santo So today it's a middle-sized town, about 1.52 million people.

5:17But in that time, Victoria was 120 ,000 people. But for us, it was a huge town. And wow, for me, it was so amazing, so amazing to be in this town, discovering another country, another people, another way of living. Victoria is one of the biggest hub of exportation of iron ore in the planet. And we had in this time, as we have now, boats come from all over the world to collect the iron ore there. And I remember I did my studies during the week, and Saturdays and Sundays I spent in the harbor looking at these boats, amazing beautiful boats with these flags come from Norway, come from Japan come from England, come from the United States and seeing these boats and look at these flags and look at these sailors inside and imagine that in one month, two months they'll be in another part of the planet and in this moment I had a huge dream to go off.

6:28I started to imagine what was outside of Brazil. You met your wife, Lelia, in Vitoria in 1964 and she is still your editor, your curator, your partner in your work. What brought you together initially? For me, it was a revolution when I met Lelia. Of course, I was younger. I had a lot of different girlfriends each week, one, two, two. But when I met Lelia, it was different. Lelia in this moment she were a pianist she made the conservatory of music a pianist? pianist and Lelia introduced me in another planet of music I remember the first time that I came to Lelia's house she sit in the piano and she play a series of noturno of Chopin for me the dimension of this music was so incredible.

7:32I came to another dimension, always through the music, knowing Lélia. And from there, we started to dream for us another life. I was in this moment doing my studies in economy, and we started to dream where we'd be going. I had a chance to go to the University of São Paulo to do master's degrees in economy. We had just 20 places for all Brazil. And I was set. To study economics? Economics. And I went together to live in São Paulo. It's now 60 years that we're together. Wow. And we're really together. But that year that you met, 60 years ago, was also the year of the coup in Brazil, the start of a 20-year military dictatorship.

8:27How did life change for you and Lelia? It changed a lot. Because I were inside the students' leftist movement, I was arrested in 1964. I was just 20 years old. But they put me in jail for a few weeks. The repression started to be very strong. The CIA linked with the dictatorship in Brazil. the repression started to be very strong. And these organizations that were part of, a lot of guys started to go to jail, to be tortured, to be killed. The organization took a decision that wasn't necessary to us to go out of the country. Because if we stayed there, we'd be arrested. So you left Brazil in 1969 and you headed to Paris and you carried on your studies, economics, and then you moved to London.

9:18You were living here for a bit and working, from what I understand, for the International Coffee Organization. So that's a job which takes you around the world to all of these coffee-producing countries. Much of your photographic career has explored the concept of work and commercial power. So do you think all of that is rooted in the understanding of economics, the study of economics that you did as a young man? Well, the stance of economics that I did in that time, the economy was completely political economy. I was invited to come to London to work in the International Coffee Organization. And we had a huge fund to do investment in producer accounts around the world.

9:56I was responsible here in London for Rwanda, Burundi, Belgian Congo and Uganda. And I came to Rwanda to prepare a project about the diversification of coffee plantation. And we started in Rwanda the tea industry. Well, Rwanda was so important to you in later years, recording the genocide, and we'll talk about that later. But it was that understanding, I presume, of Rwanda, of the people that made that project in later years so important to you. Very important. When I came to Rwanda the first time in 1971, I made a trip in all countries with Mr. Joseph Mouniakindi. He was a kind of minister. We became very good friends.

10:46And we went from one of the most beautiful areas of the planet. That is the Kivu Lake in the border between Rwanda and Congo. Rwanda for me was amazing.

11:03The next important moment for you that you've chosen for this cultural life is having your very first contact with a camera in 1970. What happened? Oh, boy. You see, before to leave Brazil, two months before, Lélia lose her father. A few days before that to leave Brazil, she lose her mother. It was a shock in the life of Lélia. And she went to the university here in Paris, and she did the studies of architecture. And in a moment it was necessary to buy a camera for Lelya. We were on holidays and went to Geneva and we bought a camera to Lelya. What an amazing camera. I remember to now the smell of this camera, the design of the camera.

11:53And when I put this camera in my eye, I realized that was supposed to me to materialize in images everything that I love that disrupt me that made me surprised was supposed to transform all this in picture. But you bought the camera for Lelia to help her architectural studies but you... We bought together. We bought together. We went and we chose a camera together and we bought with one lens. we had a little bit more money and one week later we bought two more lens because I started to study the camera and this camera was what provoked a real revolution in my life Is there one photograph that you regard as the first Salgado image that you took with that camera?

12:43I took, yes, the first I took is Lelia sitting in the window of the small house that we were in these mountains in Haute-Savoie in France and we have this picture too now, but it was a color picture. I was going to say that's a color image, isn't it? It's a color image. In the years since, you have worked exclusively in black and white. Why the monochrome images? I made a lot of color pictures. Mostly when I came to work as a professional photographer, started to work for the press. The press in the 70s, they didn't use black and white. and I was obliged to walk in color. But color for me was very disturbing because when I put the camera in my eyes, I saw some red, some blue, some green, stronger.

13:35In that time, you walk with slides and the contrast of color and slides are very high and that disturbance to pay attention in the personality of the people that I was photographing, the dignity of the people. But when I work in black and white, all these colors become gray. Normally, they stabilize the universe of color. It was possible to me to pay attention to what for me was important in the picture. I presume that very soon after you started taking images, taking photographs, you realized you were good. You could take a really good photograph. Was it a hard decision to give up that career as an economist?

14:16And I think you had just been offered this prestigious job at the World Bank. It could have taken you into a very different lifestyle. I remember we were living here in London. In that time, we got a small boat in Serpentine Lake here in Hyde Park. We stopped this boat in the middle of the lake and for hours, discussing with Lely to go to Washington and start a brilliant career of economists. or I will abandon everything and become a photographer. And the photographer wins. And you made that decision on the boat? On the boat, yeah. I remember when I came to the president of the World Golf Organization and I said to him, sir, I'm going out of the organization.

15:03He said, I know, Sebastian, that you are going to the World Bank. I know that you have a proposition. I said, you know, I will be a photographer. He looks at me and says, you are the most stupid guy that I ever saw in my life. You are putting beside a brilliant career of economists to go to Adaventura as a photographer. I had a doubt in this moment, but yes, I'm good. Why did you make that decision? Well, because I was poisoned by photography. I loved photography. I had a small dark room in the kitchen of our apartment here in Queensway. and I was printing every pic that I did. It was impossible to me not to link with photography.

15:48Technically speaking, how much of the drama of the image, and you are known for your very dramatic images, how much of that drama is captured in the moment and how much is due to the printing process? I was printing, but I was not a good printer. But after I started photography, I kept printing my work. I kept developing my film. and I never went to any school of photography, but I finished to learn how really to expose my films. For example, working in Africa, the films are made for the soft lights of the north of the planet, for the United States, for England, for France. The film, the actual...

16:29The film, because they were made in rich countries where the lights are very soft. They are not made for tropical countries where the lights are very hard. I started to mind how to charge the developers and I started to charge the chemical products and I made a much more softer developer. So you were developing your own techniques in the dark room. Completely. In reading all the techniques, how to develop, I overexposed my films and I underdeveloped them in order to have a much more grey negative. and after I became a specialist on this and my prints are quite different from the others. We associate you with the landscapes, the forests, the mountains, the deserts captured in this dramatic light.

17:18Do you consider yourself a documentary photographer, a photojournalist or an artist? I am anything. I'm a photojournalist, of course I am because I work a lot for newspaper, for magazine. I'm a documentary photographer because I work in long-term stories doing what was important for me. I did a big history about work in class that took me six years to do. And these are images all around the world of people, manual labourers under the toughest of conditions. I had the idea to do a story about sugar cane because sugar cane for me was really very important and I went to shoot sugar cane in Brazil and shoot in Cuba.

18:02I call them warriors because in the sense when you see them work, they have big knives where they cut the sugarcane, the machete. It's very hard to work in this job. To cut the sugarcane, you must be in a very special position to cut them. Sometimes you have snakes, you have animals mixed with all these. Sometimes you cut yourself. Sugarcane is a very violent work. It's very difficult work.

18:32I probably did at least four to fifty different stories. I did a long story about migration, I did a long story about nature that was Janice, a long story about Amazonia, a long story about Latin America. What about the aesthetics? Are you an artist? We have a shape, we have light, we have liners we have a frame in a fraction of a second you must organize all this and these aesthetics I carry with me my lights when I was a child I came for the most baroque place in the planet that is the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil my pictures they are deeply baroque I have all my ideology there inside my pictures I have my father my mother I have all my heritage to create this aesthetical object that is my picture in this fraction of a second that I do it.

19:31What do you mean that your photographs and your imagination was Baroque? Because all the landscape of Minas Gerais, all the mountains, all the erosion, all the rivers, all the churches, all the small towns, they gave the origin to the Portuguese Baroque. Portuguese Baroque, born in Minas Gerais in Brazil. And it's another way to behave, it's another way to have a frame of the nature in front of you. So it's the complexity of the image. It's the complexity that gave you one base for to create. I started to press the button in 1970, but the pictures started to be inside me after I was born. Your next significant moment is joining the Magnum Photographic Agency in 1979.

20:25So what impact did Magnum have on your work? Magnum itself was not really important. What was really important is this group of all the photographers that were there. Cartier-Bresson, Eric Lissing, Eric Hartman and Cornel Capa. Amazing photographers. that look become younger and they start to add me to edit my pictures how to build the stores how to hold longer in the store and that for me was very very important so these were really well-known photographers were advising you other device me they were my good friends george roger that's a British photographer. Wow, I came so many times here to George House to see the work of George.

21:20George was my fabulous friend. And these guys, they teach me how to behave long-term in these stories. Well, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa were amongst the founders of the Magnum Agency. They were, and George Rogers also. They were the founders of Magnum Agency. And so were you being directly influenced by their work Not really. Any photographer, I don't believe that influences another photographer. The influence of each photographer is his heritage. But it was how to structure the work, how to behave in the road, how to hold inside the stories, how to edit the stories. I learned how to do my work prints and select better.

22:05and Katia Bresson had two square things that he put over this picture to see the composition. He said, Sebastian, come to see your composition and he looks at if you had made just this part of the picture. Look how strong. And he made an education visual. That's interesting that you keep talking about stories. You're telling stories with each millisecond of an image that's captured in front of you. But the most important are the stories. Sometimes people are, Sebastian was your most important picture. I don't have a most important picture. I have stories. I work in the stories. You see, sometimes I'm in a show.

22:49Someone comes out, Sebastian, you are an artist. He said, no, I'm not an artist. I'm a photographer. To be a photographer is a huge privilege. Because only you are there. A journalist can come and get information, write an article, but if the photographer is not there where the things happen, you don't have the image. And having the opportunity to be there, to look at the things from inside, to know people, to be in touch of the planet, this is what the photographer has. That is a huge privilege. And in this, you build your stories. What is important is this part of your life where you build a story.

23:31And the images are just the consequence of this, but not one image, the group of images that tell this story. Let's talk about people, because they populate your landscapes, the workers, the migrants, the victims of war and genocide very often. And there seems to be a great respect for the dignity of people in these appalling of circumstances. Is that what you're hoping to achieve with your photographs? You see, the most important thing is the beauty. And when you come to photograph people, the beauty is not a nose, it's not an eye, it's not a hair. The beauty of a person is his dignity. The dignity.

24:16And when you can, in certain way, capture this dignity, it's the most beautiful thing that you can get. And if the dignity is in a rich person, is in a poor person, it's the same. It's not that I went in my life to look for poor people in the world, for misery. I never photograph misery. I photograph dignity. I photograph a lot of people from poor camps. But it's from where I come from. I came from an underdeveloped country that is not developed until today. and I came for my word and it was necessary to show my word in an important way to suit the dignity of the people. When you embark on each project do you hope that the images that you collect the stories that you tell will have some impact and help social and political change in the world?

25:15Not really. I know that my pictures add a lot in humanitarian organization. We use a lot of my pictures to political debates. But it's not that I went there to create pictures to provoke a debate. I went there because that was my way of life. That was in what I believe. I never were activist. What I wear is photographing things that I trust. Well, let's talk about some of your best-known, most dramatic, most poetic images taken in 1986, thousands and thousands of men digging for gold in a remote mine deep in the Amazon. These are, I mean it's often said they're like biblical scenes. Men climbing up very rickety ladders.

26:05They're naked most of them or have loincloths on. What do you remember of that shoot, of that period that you spent in that mine? I was in Brazil in 98. I came back for the first time after 11 years out of Brazil. we became refugees of the dictatorship when dictatorship finished we went back to Brazil when we were there in 98 we discovered this mine 98? no 80, 80, 80 1980 and I saw on television, I saw pictures I wished to go there to do my pictures but was the Brazilian army that were controlling this mine because they have more than 50 ,000 miners there, it was necessary to take care, not to become a big riot, a big problem in the region.

26:50So the army was controlling? Controlling. And I applied to go, and I have my information of the military system. Brazil was very negative against me, and they do not allow me to go. And I tried 81, 82, 83, 84, 85. In 1986, the mind changed the administration. The army came out and they created a cooperative of the owners of the concession and the workers. And they allowed me to come with the advantage. If I had come before, I went there like any photographer, any cameraman. They landed there early in the morning with a small plane. We had a landing strip very close to Dubai. The guys walking, they fly back in the evening because they have no place to stay, no hotels, nothing there.

27:40was in the middle of the forest, the Amazonian Forest. But when I came in 1986, I prepared to be there. I was there for about 38 days, 40 days. And I organized to be there. And there I did a real story because in this month I was starting my project that I call workers. It wasn't necessary for me to be there. And to live with them. I live with them. and I bring a hammock, I install it in the corner. They had a huge canvas where the guys were installating hammocks and I put a hammock for me. I bring a half bag of rice, a half bag of black beans, some soldered meat. I put my contribution food, common part with the guys and I live with them for long.

28:32And I say these look like biblical images. It looks like slaves in an open caste mine. But in fact, the reality is, as you say, this is a cooperative. These are people who, this is literally a gold rush. These are people who think they're going to get rich digging with their bare hands through the earth. In a sense, they were slaves, but slaves of the gold. The guys came there for the gold. The guys that are rich by the gold, they don't come more out of the gold. And they live in any kind of condition. It was very hard, very dangerous. A lot of people killed, a lot of accidents. There was any security there, any doctor, any nurse, nothing.

29:11The guy endured, he was injured to death. But the guys weren't there for the gold because when one of these concessions hit the gold, any guy that was working for him just for the food had right to one bag with gold inside. It was 300 grams. I was supposed to have three kilos of gold inside. In this month, he became rich. Three kilos of gold. You could have walked off. Oh, boy. When I came there, they had to get more than 60 ,000 kilos of gold in this mine. No, the mine was very, very rich in gold. So these workers who were working in the most primitive conditions at any given day could strike, literally strike rich and walk off like as a millionaire.

29:58Well, the guys became a millionaire and he spent the fortune in one week, ten days. The same guy that accepted him there, they get gold. He gets 97 kilos of gold in one afternoon. The next week he closed his concession. For about two weeks he hired a Boeing 737, put all the miners that worked with him inside. they were about 50 with about 50 prostitutes and they fly to Rio de Janeiro and they burn all the money and they have to get Manon to come back and start again you see, the guys from the gold they are different, they are special That must have been incredibly dangerous for you as well, because I presume those ladders that we see, there are dozens of ladders reaching high up along these absolutely vertical cliffs of the mine open cast mind.