'Happy suffering': the Brazilian gold rush that spawned iconic pictures

Serra Pelada, Brazil (AFP) July 3, 2025

Four decades after Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado shot a human anthill of mud-spattered miners digging for gold in the middle of the Amazon, some of the "garimpeiros," now into their 70s, are still hoping to get lucky. Salgado's 1986 black-and-white photos of hundreds of men with pickaxes and spades working in the Serra Pelada open-pit mine travelled the world, depicting the hellis