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Photography as a Language
Photography as a Language
Sebastião Salgado
January 5, 2026
Sebastião Salgado: Worker on the canal construction site, Rajasthan, India, 1989
© Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado counts as one of the most important photographers of the 20th and 21st century. Under the title of Sebastião Salgado. A Retrospective, the Bene Taschen Gallery in Cologne presents selected works from the series Genesis, Workers, Gold, Exodus, and Other Americas. The exhibition coincides with the solo show AMAZÔNIA – Photographs by Sebastião Salgado at the city’s Rautenstrauch Joest Museum.
His long-term project Genesis – created over the course of eight years in 32 locations worldwide – counts as one of Salgado’s most seminal bodies of work. The series celebrates the beauty of our planet and the natural world, focusing on regions that have largely escaped the destructive impact of human intervention. In Workers, the photographer trained his lens on the working environments of people across different countries, portraying traditional craftsmanship and forms of physical labour such as agricultural harvesting.
With Gold, Salgado highlighted the precarious conditions at the Serra Pelada mine: in 1986, he captured the harsh realities of 50,000 people searching for gold in a vast, open-pit mine in the Brazilian rainforest. The funnel-shaped, terraced crater, which extended 120 metres into the earth, was dug out by hand, without the use of machinery.
For Exodus, Salgado travelled to 35 countries to document the global migration movement: over the course of six years, he photographed both the scale of the migrant crisis and moments of individual exile stories. With Other Americas – shot during numerous trips in the 1970s and 1980s – Salgado created a powerful portrait of rural cultures and traditional lifestyles in Latin America.
Katrin UllmannHis long-term project Genesis – created over the course of eight years in 32 locations worldwide – counts as one of Salgado’s most seminal bodies of work. The series celebrates the beauty of our planet and the natural world, focusing on regions that have largely escaped the destructive impact of human intervention. In Workers, the photographer trained his lens on the working environments of people across different countries, portraying traditional craftsmanship and forms of physical labour such as agricultural harvesting.
With Gold, Salgado highlighted the precarious conditions at the Serra Pelada mine: in 1986, he captured the harsh realities of 50,000 people searching for gold in a vast, open-pit mine in the Brazilian rainforest. The funnel-shaped, terraced crater, which extended 120 metres into the earth, was dug out by hand, without the use of machinery.
For Exodus, Salgado travelled to 35 countries to document the global migration movement: over the course of six years, he photographed both the scale of the migrant crisis and moments of individual exile stories. With Other Americas – shot during numerous trips in the 1970s and 1980s – Salgado created a powerful portrait of rural cultures and traditional lifestyles in Latin America.
ALL IMAGES ON THIS PAGE: © Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado+-
Born in Aimorés in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 1944, Salgado initially studied Economics. While later working as an economist in London, he travelled to Africa and began taking pictures. For over forty years during his photographic career, he has returned to Africa for many projects. He has lived and worked in Paris with his wife, since 1969. Since the nineties, the couple have been dedicated to restoring a piece of rainforest in Minas Gerais. In 1998, they managed to have the area accepted as a nature reserve, and they founded the Instituto Terra, which is dedicated to restoration and protection of nature, and environmental education. To date, 2.7 million trees have been planted. Sebastião Salgado died in Paris in 2025. More
Sebastião Salgado: Worker on the canal construction site, Rajasthan, India, 1989
© Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado: Cemetery of the Town of Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico, 1980
© Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado: Chinstrap Penguins dive off Icebergs located between Zavodovski and Visokoi Islands, South Sandwich Islands, 2009
© Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado: Fireball, Greater Burhan Oil Field, Kuwait, 1991
© Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado: Gold Mine of Serra Pelada, Pará, Brazil, 1986
© Sebastião Salgado