AFTER our “Visions of Renewal” contest CAME to a close, we’ve taken time to reflect on the extraordinary photographs shared with us over Seven weeks. We are deeply moved and humbled by the incredible response, which has reminded us just how profound and universal the human longing for hope and renewal truly is.
In the spirit of that inspiration, we’d like to leave you with a beautiful story, one that speaks to the enduring power of renewal and the quiet strength of hope.
“Every tree we planted was a step toward life. Toward recovery. Toward hope.”
— Sebastião Salgado
There are seasons in life that hollow us out, where we see so much suffering that joy begins to feel like a foreign language. Sebastião Salgado, one of the world’s most iconic documentary photographers, knows this intimately.
After decades photographing famine in Africa, genocide in Rwanda, and the brutality of human displacement, he was depleted: physically, emotionally, spiritually. The lens that once helped him bear witness to injustice began reflecting despair back at him. The world felt broken. And so did he.
In search of healing, Salgado returned to Brazil, to the farm of his childhood. What he found there mirrored his own internal state. Once a thriving rainforest, the land had become barren and dry, its trees razed, its soul quiet.
But where others may have seen ruin, he saw a beginning. With his wife Lélia, he began planting. Slowly, methodically, one tree at a time. Over two decades, they planted more than 2.7 million trees, resurrecting over 1,700 acres of Atlantic Forest. What had been dead came alive again: birds, insects, rivers, color, sound, soul.
“The land was as sick as I was — we healed each other,”
Salgado later reflected.
As the forest returned to life, so did his vision. Salgado picked up his camera again, but this time he turned away from devastation and toward beauty, toward untouched places that whisper of purity, resilience, and balance. His photographic masterpiece Genesis is a tribute to the Earth’s magnificence, a reminder that hope is not a concept, but a landscape we can tend to.Through breathtaking black-and-white imagery, he invites us to remember what is sacred. Every glacier, every mountain, every tribe he captured was a testament: we are still capable of living in harmony with the planet and with each other.
Sebastião Salgado, Eastern Part of the Brooks Range, Alaska, United States, 2009
© Amazonas Images, Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery
At SeeingHappy, we believe in the power of visual storytelling to reclaim light, to transform what breaks us into what remakes us. Salgado’s journey mirrors our mission: to use the camera not just as a tool of observation, but as a seed of renewal. Through stories of joy, resilience, and connection, we plant reminders that beauty still exists, and that it matters. Even in the darkest chapters, there is light to be found or grown.
-Mandy
