Sebastiao Salgado was born in Aimores, Brazil, in 1944. He studied economics and, as an economist, worked for the World Bank and the International Coffee Organisation. He began his career as a professional photographer in 1973, when he completed the first part of his documentation of Sahel, the areas of famine and drought covering parts of Sudan, Ethiopia and Mall. He returned to the area several times over a seven-year period in cooperation with the French relief organisation
Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). The book Sahel-Man in Distress was published in 1986. Salgado joined the photo agency Sygma in 1974, then Gamma in 1975 and finally Magnum in 1979. In 1994 Amazonas Images, an agency that exclusively handles his work, was founded. His years of work on a photo-essay on the living conditions and customs of farmers and workers in Latin America were brought together and condensed for both an exhibition and a book, Other Americans , in 1986.
The next photographic project was outlined by Salgado as The Archaeology of Industrialism , a record of man and his material heritage on the eve of the 21"st century. The book Workers was published in 1993 in the US, France, England, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Japan and in Italy 1994.
In 1994, Salgado began a time-consuming survey on migration, a photo-essay to depict the contemporary scene of millions of people on the move, in flight from wars, revolutions or political oppression, or from the poverty of rural regions to the suburban slums of ever-growing cities. It's a subject which has been close to his heart since as a child he saw land barons usurp small landholdings in his hometown. The project is scheduled for completion in 1999.
A world-renowned photographer, Sebastiao Salgado has been awarded virtually every major photographic prize in recognition of his accomplishments, from institutions in France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Sweden, England, and the US.
