Photographer Sebastião Salgado at 80: ‘They say I was an aesthete of misery’

Sebastião Salgado working in his Paris studio days before he turned 80. The photographer, who made his name with social documentary, became increasingly focused on the environment in the 1990s. Photograph: Ed Alcock/Guardian

‘I photographed the world,” says Sebastião Salgado, flicking through the archive in his Paris studio. Salgado, who turns 80 this week, has witnessed wars, revolutions, coups, humanitarian crises, and famine. He has also seen some of the most pristine places on the planet – locations and peoples untouched by the devastating fury of the modern world.

His body of work, an instantly recognisable combination of black-and-white composition and dramatic lighting, has been built up over decades, covering hundreds of assignments in 130 countries and his name stands in the photojournalist pantheon alongside figures such as Robert Capa, Eugene Smith, Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, James Nachtwey and Steve McCurry.