Sebastiāo Salgado (1944-2025) became a photographer in 1973, after leaving his career as economist. Already from the start, his photography stood out in a consistent high level and his picture stories immediately became world famous. The outstanding features were published in the world’s leading magazines and newspapers. Several important books are published from his photographic projects. In his book. Workers for instance, he covers the hardworking people who are responsible for building civilizations but who do not get any credit or recognition for it. Salgado is particularly recognized for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations. His photographic work is considered of the highest level and his series also inspired many young photographers to start a career as a documentary photographer.

After working for the French photo agency’s Sygma and Gamma, he joined Magnum Photo’s in 1979. He left Magnum in 1994 and formed with his partner Lélia Wanick his own agency, the Paris based Amazonas Images. All the picture stories that Salgado produced from the early 80’s to the 90’s was on film. The stories were printed in the dark rooms at the Amazonas studio. The sets of prints were distributed to a select group of leading Photo Agencies worldwide. These agencies obtained from Amazonas Images the exclusive local license-distribution rights for Salgado’s work. One of those agencies was the Amsterdam based ABC Press, founded in 1934. ABC Press was the top photo agency in The Netherlands and stayed at that level until it’s closure in 2003, when the transition into digital reached its turning point for many agencies.

The displayed prints are single images, coming directly from the Salgado picture stories. The extensive edit procedure for composing the final prints on each feature was always done by Sebastiāo Salgado himself. All displayed enlargements come from the ABC Press Salgado photo collection: Original resin coated (RC) media prints, 24x30 cm, printed in one of the two darkrooms at Studio Amazonas Images in Paris. Each print is stamped on the back with an ABC Press stamp, including the date when ABC Press received the print. Each print has a © notification for Amazonas Images. Each print contains an extensive caption printed on the back, written by staff members of Amazonas Images. Each print contains on the back a pencil handwritten negative number.  It is the first time ever that a selection of these prints is on display and for sale. The selections of the ABC Press collections are being made available by Caption Photo Gallery, in full consent of the Studio Sebastiāo Salgado. For more information: www.captionphotogallery.com info@captionphotogallery.com.

Sebastião Salgado passed away in May 2025. He will be remembered as one of the greatest, if not the greatest documentary photographer ever. On the 24th of May the Guardian wrote:  "Salgado, who in his lifetime produced more than 500,000 images while meticulously documenting every continent on Earth and many of the major geopolitical events since the second world war, will be remembered as one of the world’s most prodigious and relentlessly empathetic chroniclers of the human condition." 

Photo homepage EPA/Hayoung Jeon 2018