At 67, he says that “Genesis” is likely to be his last large-scale work. But when he adds “I am discovering photography again, I am discovering new pleasure in my work,” it’s a little hard to believe him.
Pictured: Fields in the valley outside Lalibela"Almost everyone who lives here works in agriculture. They live as they did 2,000 or 3,000 years ago." The birds are white-collared pigeons
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The title “Genesis” carries an obvious religious load, but Salgado distances himself vehemently from the association. “No, no, no, I am talking only about origins.” But if there’s anything in the first book of the Bible that he might hold to, it is that when it comes to the earth we are obliged “to dress it and to keep it”. In a valley outside Lalibela, he captured fastidiously cultivated fields multiplying countlessly into the distance. The care that the people put into them impressed Salgado, who created a nature reserve himself in Brazil in 1998. read more »COMMENTS: 0 | ADD NEW COMMENTphoto essay: salgado's ethiopia
Walking was invaluable. “Photographing a landscape is no different to photographing a human,” says Salgado. “You must respect the landscape, integrate with the landscape, with everything that gives volume to the landscape.” The result is a powerful geological drama. In his shot of the Tekeze river, slicing its way through a gorge 300 metres deep, the top of the bluff is set high in the composition, an implacable obstacle, flat as a ruler. On foot he found the vertiginous perspectives that give these pictures their grandeur. read more »COMMENTS: 0 | ADD NEW COMMENTphoto essay: salgado's ethiopia
Pictured: The Simien national park“The landscape here has a big personality, a big dignity. If you give special attention to the landscape, it gives something back to you”
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In October 2008, Salgado set out from Lalibela, a town known as a place of pilgrimage, on a 55-day walk. He was accompanied by a guide, a local assistant and a phalanx of 18 donkeys and their owners—“when you hire a donkey here, you hire its owner too.” Also in the party were two armed guards, one carrying a Kalashnikov, the other a rifle from the second world war. From Lalibela they walked north-west towards the Simien mountains, covering more than 800 kilometres. It was exhausting—five of the donkeys died, “a big, big drama”—but exhilarating. read more »COMMENTS: 0 | ADD NEW COMMENTphoto essay: salgado's ethiopia
For seven years, Salgado has been working on a vast project called “Genesis”, of which these pictures are a part. He has travelled around the world—to the Galapagos, the Congo, Antarctica—capturing places and lives untouched by modern development. The scale of the project is typical of him. Since the 1970s, when he took up photography after a brief career as an economist, he has specialised in long-term reportage in black and white. “Migrations”, a photo essay capturing people on the move begun in 1993, took him six years to complete. read more »COMMENTS: 0 | ADD NEW COMMENTphoto essay: salgado's ethiopia
Up on the plateau in northern Ethiopia, life has barely changed in thousands of years. Sebastião Salgado spent two months walking in the mountains to catch the intricacies of the landscape. Text by Simon Willis
In the highlands of northern Ethiopia, the mountains keep insiders in and outsiders out. There is only one main road, and no other access except on foot. For Sebastião Salgado, who took these photographs, this made it a perfect subject. “I wanted to photograph here because it is isolated,” he says. read more »COMMENTS: 0 | ADD NEW COMMENTphoto essay: salgado's ethiopia
