Sebastião Salgado: Master of Light, Shadow, and Human Dignity

A Legacy Worth Studying

Stand in front of a Sebastião Salgado photograph and something happens. Time slows down. Whether it’s those famous gold miners climbing out of Serra Pelada or morning mist over the Amazon, his images grab you and won’t let go. 

For more than 50 years, Salgado used his camera to do more than document—he transformed hard labor into visual poetry and showed dignity in the most difficult circumstances.

The Technical Side: How He Did It

Everything in Focus

Salgado had a clear philosophy about focus: “The eye does not blur, it sees everything focused.” 

This drove his consistent use of small apertures—typically f/8 to f/11, sometimes smaller. While many photographers today love that creamy bokeh, Salgado wanted everything sharp. The person in front, the machinery behind them, the landscape beyond—all equally important to the story.

Look at those Serra Pelada gold mine photos. Shot with his Leica R system at small apertures, you can see every mud-covered miner in the foreground AND the tiny figures climbing the pit walls in perfect detail. This wasn’t just a technical choice—it was storytelling. One person’s struggle becomes part of a massive human endeavor.

Why Black and White?

According to interviews, Salgado believed black and white helped viewers focus on emotion and message without getting distracted by color. It wasn’t about being old-fashioned—it was strategic. Strip away color and you’re left with light, shadow, form, and feeling.

His film workflow was meticulous. He shot mainly Kodak Tri-X 400, often pushing it to 800 or 1600 ISO when needed. His method? Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights. This gave him negatives with incredible tonal range. Then came the darkroom work—hours of dodging and burning, sometimes days on a single print until the balance was perfect.

Going Digital Without Losing Soul

When Salgado switched to digital in the 2000s, plenty of people wondered if he’d lose that signature look. According to Photography Life, he chose Canon specifically because their high ISO performance let him keep shooting at those small apertures even in tough light. Smart move.

His digital workflow basically recreated his darkroom process. Working with his printer in Paris, he’d spend hours on each image, carefully converting color files to black and white. Channel mixing, tonal adjustments—whatever it took to get those rich blacks and glowing highlights that made his work instantly recognizable.

Lenses and How He Composed

Early on, Salgado shot mostly with prime lenses—35mm and 50mm for their natural perspective. But as Photography Life reports, he switched to zooms once the quality caught up. 

His reasoning was practical: when you’re documenting workers in a mine or refugees on the move, you can’t always reposition yourself. By the 2000s, he was using Canon’s 24-70mm and 70-200mm f/2.8 zooms almost exclusively.

Looking at his work, you can see consistent composition principles:

• Layered depth: Something happening in foreground, middle, and background
• Low horizons: Lots of sky to show humanity’s place in the bigger picture
• Diagonal lines: Natural elements creating movement through the frame
• Patient timing: Waiting for everything to line up just right

Printing Mattered

For Salgado, printing was where the image came alive. Those huge exhibition prints—sometimes a meter wide—weren’t just big for impact. They pulled viewers into the scene. He typically used:

• Fiber-based papers: For rich blacks and archival quality
• Selenium toning: Subtle, for depth and longevity
• Careful sizing: Big enough to immerse viewers but not overwhelming
• Simple presentation: Clean white mats that didn’t compete with the image

Playing the Long Game

Projects Measured in Years

Most photographers think in terms of assignments. Salgado thought in years. Workers took six years across 26 countries. Genesis needed eight years and over 30 expeditions. This wasn’t just being thorough—it was his whole philosophy. You can’t understand a situation by dropping in for a few days.Take his Sahel famine work. Instead of grabbing quick disaster shots, he embedded with Médecins Sans Frontières for months. The result? Images that showed not just suffering but also causes, responses, and human resilience. A mother protecting her child. A doctor’s careful touch. Life persisting against the odds.

Getting Access the Right Way

How did Salgado get into places most photographers couldn’t? Simple: he treated subjects as collaborators, not targets. His projects show he’d often spend weeks just hanging out, learning the language, sharing meals, understanding the situation before seriously shooting.

This patience paid off technically too. People got comfortable with him around, so he could use natural light instead of flash. He could wait for that perfect moment when gesture, light, and composition came together because he’d earned the right to be there.

Understanding Light

Natural Light Only (Almost)

Salgado rarely used artificial light. His images show he understood different natural light conditions:

• Desert light: Hard, sculptural, best at sharp angles
• Rainforest light: Filtered through canopy layers, needs patience
• Industrial light: Mixed sources requiring careful handling
• Arctic light: Soft, coming from everywhere, needs subtle control

His typical day started before dawn and ended after sunset. Whatever it took to find the right light for the story.

Shadows as Subjects

In Salgado’s work, shadows aren’t just dark areas—they’re active parts of the composition. His exposure strategy favored keeping shadow detail, even if highlights blew out. He knew he could control those in printing. This created his signature look: people emerging from darkness into light, both literally and symbolically.

Lessons for Digital Photographers

His transition from film to digital teaches us:

• Always shoot RAW: Keep all that data for processing
• Think in zones: Even digital benefits from understanding tonal range
• Don’t fear high ISO: Grain adds character, enables creative choices
• Print your work: Images don’t really exist until they’re printed

Ethics First

Salgado’s approach shows clear ethical principles:

• No staging or manipulation
• Build real relationships with subjects
• Only publish images that preserve dignity
• Share benefits with communities when possible

These ethics shaped his technical choices—using focal lengths that maintained respectful distance, choosing angles that empowered rather than diminished people.

The Environmental Years

Genesis and Amazônia marked a shift. Working in pristine environments meant:

• Minimal gear: Less impact on fragile ecosystems
• Long acclimatization: Weeks adjusting before shooting
• Local collaboration: Working with indigenous guides
• Conservation focus: Using images to advocate for protection

What We Can Learn

Practical Takeaways

From Salgado’s career, today’s photographers can learn:

• Slow down: Multi-year projects beat quick hits
• Find your vision: Stick with it and refine it
• Print regularly: Screens lie, prints reveal truth
• Study composition: It’s universal visual language
• Commit fully: Half-hearted efforts show

Gear Serves Vision

Despite his technical precision, Salgado was pragmatic about equipment. He used Leicas, Pentaxes, Nikons, and Canons over his career, switching based on what worked best. His move from Nikon to Canon (reported in Photography Life) shows function beat brand loyalty.

His typical field kit was surprisingly simple:

• Two camera bodies (backup is essential)
• Three zooms covering 24-200mm
• Polarizing filters for reflections
• ND filters for long exposures
• Solid tripod for landscapes
• Light meter (yes, even in digital)

The End of an Era

On May 23, 2025, Sebastião Salgado passed away in Paris at 81. Brazilian President Lula called him “one of the best photographers the world has given us.” The photography world lost not just a technical master but someone who showed us how to use cameras for something bigger than pretty pictures.

But Salgado’s impact continues. At Instituto Terra, millions of trees he and wife Lélia planted are still growing, turning dead farmland back into rainforest. His photographs hang in museums worldwide, still stopping people in their tracks. Most importantly, his approach—technical excellence serving human dignity—keeps inspiring photographers to see their work as more than just image-making.

The Guardian noted his “instantly recognisable combination of black-and-white composition and dramatic lighting” puts him among greats like W. Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier-Bresson. But Salgado’s real genius was balancing beautiful images with ethical purpose.

He believed beauty could make people pay attention to difficult subjects. As he said, “If you show a very tragic situation in a beautiful way, people stop, people look. And after they start to read the story.” This idea—using compelling images to build empathy and inspire action—might be his greatest contribution to photography.

As we continue our own photography journeys, we carry his lessons: patience beats speed, technique serves story, and every shot is a chance to show dignity, beauty, and truth in our shared human experience.

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References

1. Salgado, Lélia Wanick (ed.). Sebastião Salgado: Genesis. TASCHEN, 2013. taschen.com
2. Encyclopædia Britannica. “Sebastião Salgado.” britannica.com
3. BBC News. “Sebastião Salgado: Photographer who showed ‘beauty and destruction’ dies.” May 2025. bbc.com
4. Masters of Photography. “Sebastião Salgado Interview.” mastersof.photography
5. The Guardian. “Sebastião Salgado: ‘I’m not an artist. I’m a photographer.'” theguardian.com
6. Smithsonian Magazine. “How Sebastião Salgado Regenerated a Forest.” smithsonianmag.com
7. Photography Life. “An Interview with Sebastião Salgado.” photographylife.com
8. Amazon. Various Salgado publications. amazon.com
9. Wikipedia. “Sebastião Salgado.” en.wikipedia.org

Images used in this article were from the book pages of his work which can be found here:

• Amazonia: https://amzn.to/45sZvXC
• Africa: https://amzn.to/4mt16CO
• Exodus: https://amzn.to/3HfQUgO
• Genesis: https://amzn.to/4l0nvpN
• Goldmine: https://amzn.to/3FvJBRF
• Sahel: https://amzn.to/3ZGmECb
• Workers : https://amzn.to/3SqpAPn