Author Description

<i>“In </i>Genesis<i>, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.</i>” —Sebastião Salgado<br> <br> On a very fortuitous day in 1970, 26-year-old <b>Sebastião Salgado</b> 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.<br> <br> 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,<b> three long-term projects </b>stand out: <b><i>Workers</i> </b>(1993), documenting the vanishing way of life of manual laborers across the world, <b><i>Migrations</i> </b>(2000), a tribute to mass migration driven by hunger, natural disasters, environmental degradation and demographic pressure, and<b> this new opus, <i>Genesis</i>, 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</b>—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 <i>Genesis</i> 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.<br> <br> Over 30 trips—travelled by foot, light aircraft, seagoing vessels, canoes, and even balloons, through extreme heat and cold and in sometimes dangerous conditions—<