SEBASTI?O SALGADO. GENESIS

A photographic homage to our planet`In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.` `Sebasti`o SalgadoOn a very fortuitous day in 1970, 26-year-old Sebasti`o Salgado held a camera for the first time. When he looked through the viewfinder, he experienced a revelation: suddenly life made sense. From that day onward`though it took years of hard work before he had the experience to earn his living as a photographer`the camera became his tool for interacting with the world. Salgado, who `always preferred the chiaroscuro palette of black-and-white images,` shot very little color in his early career before giving it up completely.Raised on a farm in Brazil, Salgado possessed a deep love and respect for nature: he was also particularly sensitive to the ways in which human beings are affected by their often devastating socio-economic conditions. Of the myriad works Salgado has produced in his acclaimed career, three long-term projects stand out: Workers (1993), documenting the vanishing way of life of manual laborers across the world: Migrations (2000), a tribute to mass migration driven by hunger, natural disasters, environmental degradation and demographic pressure: and this new opus, GENESIS, the result of an epic eight-year expedition to rediscover the mountains, deserts and oceans, the animals and peoples that have so far escaped the imprint of modern society`the land and life of a still-pristine planet. `Some 46% of the planet is still as it was in the time of genesis,` Salgado reminds us. `We must preserve what exists.` The GENESIS project, along with the Salgados` Instituto Terra, are dedicated to showing the beauty of our planet, reversing the damage done to it, and preserving it for the future.Over 30 trips`traveled by foot, light aircraft, seagoing vessels, canoes, and even balloons, through extreme heat and cold and in sometimes dangerous conditions`Salgado created a collection of images showing us nature, animals, and indigenous peoples in breathtaking beauty. What does one discover in GENESIS` The animal species and volcanoes of the Galpagos: penguins, sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the Antarctic and South Atlantic: Brazilian alligators and jaguars: African lions, leopards, and elephants: the isolated Zo` tribe deep in the Amazon jungle: the Stone Age Korowai people of West Papua: nomadic Dinka cattle farmers in Sudan: Nenet nomads and their reindeer herds in the Arctic Circle: Mentawai jungle communities on islands west of Sumatra: the icebergs of the Antarctic: the volcanoes of Central Africa and the Kamchatka Peninsula: Saharan deserts: the Negro and Juru rivers in the Amazon: the ravines of the Grand Canyon: the glaciers of Alaska... and beyond. Having dedicated so much time, energy, and passion to the making of this work, Salgado calls GENESIS `my love letter to the planet.`