TAKEAWAY: Here is a testimony to the power of photography and visual storytelling. The images in the two-tome Genesis, by Sebastião Salgado, do not need words to describe the magic he has captured.
When I first saw the wooden box in the office of Paris Match editor Olivier Royant a few days ago I thought he had just acquired a collection of fine French wines. I even thought there would be a sort of wine tasting at the end of our work day.
What came out of the box was much better than wine: two huge volumes of Genesis, the 8-year project of photographer Sebastião Salgado. This book is a page turner, even though there are hardly any words (just a beautifully presented introduction by Salgado, in which he explained how the project came to be, and, even more fascinating, his start as a photographer, claiming that he had no formal instruction and not even anyone in his family who did anything related to photography).
Genesis is two tomes with 245 photographs, about 500 pages each. The contents are divided into five geographic chapters, (*“The southern outer limits”, “Natural sanctuaries”, “Africa”, “Northern lands”, “Amazon and Pantanal”*). In Salgado’s own words:
This work presents us two landscapes: the animals and the people who populate our contemporary world. It honors the vast regions where, intact and silent, nature reigns again in all its majesty….The exposition in Genesis constitutes a tribute to the fragility of a planet that we all have an obligation to protect.
This project is designed to reconnect us to how the world was before humanity altered it almost beyond recognition
Set up a very large coffee table to hold the two books. Prepare yourself to take a black and white journey through remotes part of the world, where time is as frozen as some of the Siberian villages Salgado and his camera visited.
This is a book about photography, nature, humanity, but it is also a retrospective of marvelous views, captured through the eyes of Salgado, who zeroes in on the eyes of ferocious alligators whom he seems to tame just for the shot. In fact, all of the wild animals in Genesis look at Salgado straight in the eye, as if posing for their close up and then go ing about their business.
Giant tree roots also stop for their close up with Salgado, as are entire families who eat or pray together, as if Salgado, the intruder with a camera, was not even there watching and recording their daily rituals.
The imagery in this photography is hauntingly powerful. As I mentioned to Olivier Royant and to Paris Match art director, Michel Maiquez as we flipped through the books together, Genesis is an example of photography that does not need any words to accompany it.
We can fantasize about what is happening in the photo. We can create our own story, see our own images (as I did when I thought that an aerial view of mountain peaks was that of the skyscrapers we associate with Manhattan), write our own invisible captions to the photos.
More about Genesis
Genesis is a combined project sponsored by France’s Paris Match, the USA’s Rolling Stone, Spain’s La Vanguardia, Portugal’s Visão, the United Kingdom’s The Guardian and in Italy’s La Repubblica.
http://www.amazonasimages.com/grands-travaux
Salgado’s biography
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/sep/11/sebastiaosalgado.photography2
Salgado’s images from Siberia
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/dec/07/photography-sebastiao-salgado-genesis
Where you can see the Genesis exposition:
Sesc Belenzinho, Sao Paulo, 05-11/2013
Musée de l’Ara Pacis, Rome, 15/05-15/09/2013
Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, 21/09/2013-12/01/2014
Recent interview of Salgado with his former colleagues at the Brazilian newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo (in Portuguese)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G19PQVumdR0
Pages we like
Gulf News, United Arab Emirates
Here is a wonderful page where illustration is the protagonist: another triumph for that incredibly talent illustrator from Dubai’s Gulf News, Ramachandra Babu. It shows us the power of illustration and how it can seduce us visually to get into the content of the page. The page is designed by Douglas Okasaki. Gulf News design director is Miguel Gomez. Editor in chief is Abdul Ahmad Hamid.
Babu writes me about the background of the story/page:
We published this as an intro to Kobe Bryant visit on 26 Sept. to raise awareness for diabetes as part of Fitness weekend in Dubai.This was an exclusive telephone interview with Gulf News By Senior Reporter Alaric Gomes.
Go here for story:
http://gulfnews.com/sport/basketball/kobe-bryant-in-dubai-title-number-six-will-be-good-1.1232923