Genesis

Sebastião Salgado's haunting black-and-white photographs from the GENESIS project record landscapes and people unchanged in the devastating onslaught of modern society and development. Taken over the course of an epic eight-year expedition, the images are divided into five broad geographic chapters: Planet South, Sanctuaries, Africa, Northern Spaces, Amazonia, and Pantanal. The companion volume to the world’s best attended photo show, Earth Eternal, showcases Salgado's incredible journey.

What does one discover in GENESIS? The animal species and volcanoes of the Galápagos; penguins, sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the Antarctic and South Atlantic; Brazilian alligators and jaguars; African lions, leopards, and elephants; the isolated Zo’é 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 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.”

On a very fortuitous day in 1970, 26-year-old Sebastião Salgado held a camera for the first time. 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. The Brazilian began life as a professional photographer in Paris in 1973 and subsequently worked with the Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum Photos agencies. In 1994 he and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado created Amazonas Images, which handles his work exclusively.

Also available is Sebastião Salgado on the traces of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest. In this collection, Salgado traveled the Brazilian Amazon and photographed the unparalleled beauty of this extraordinary region for six years: the forest, the rivers, the mountains, the people who live there—an irreplaceable treasure of humanity.

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