From my Land to the Planet E-Book

Sebastião Salgado

• Herausgeber: contrasto
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

From my land to the Planet is the first book that brings together the reflections written in the first person by Sebastião Salgado: a long story driven by the Brazilian photographer's ecological sensitivity, in which he describes the creation of the Instituto Terra in Brazil and his path as man and witness of our time. Salgado, authoritative voice and master of international photography, proves himself to the public as a writer, able to lead the reader, with an engaging prose, to distant countries, areas of immense beauty but also of profound injustice.Sebastião Salgado's photographs have been shown around the world. In From my land to the Planet the photographer tells us the story of his most famous reportages: the black and white portraits of unknown men and women, workers and refugees, and more recently his Genesis project aimed at the conservation of the most beautiful places of our planet.With a kindness and a disarming simplicity, Salgado rebuilds his path, exposes his beliefs, makes us sharers of his emotions. The talent as a storyteller and the authenticity of a man who knows how to combine activism and professionalism, talent and generosity, thus emerges. Inside the book there are fascinating stories of Africa, Brazil, the Americas, Mozambique and Rwanda, and then again the birth of the Instituto Terra, of the Genesis project, of Magnum Photos and finally of Amazonas Images.“I very much like to work on long-term projects...There is time for the photographer and the people in front of the camera to understand each other. There is time to go to a place and understand what is happening there. ...When you spend more time on a project, you learn to understand your subjects. There comes a time when it is not you who is taking the pictures. Something special happens between the photographer and the people he is photographing. He realizes that they are giving the pictures to him. With my background as an economist, sociologist, and anthropologist my photograpy can be nothing but social. Everything in my background, my upbringing, my education, my focus on sociology, anthropology, and geopolitics—has speeded into my photography. Photography, for me, is continuity.” Sebastião Salgado

Leseprobe

Sebastião Salgado

FROM MY LAND TO THE PLANET

WITH ISABELLE FRANCQ

© 2014 Contrasto srl

via Nizza, 56

00198 Roma

www.contrastobooks.com

Original edition

De ma terre a la terre

© Presses de la Renaissance, un département d’Édi8, 2013

Photographs and text © Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, Paris

Translation: Ruth Taylor

Layout: Tania Russo

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-88-6965-566-1

This ebook was created with BackTypo (http://backtypo.com)by Simplicissimus Book Farm

Index

Preface

In the beginning: Genesis

My homeland

In France and not elsewhere

One click was enough

Africa, my other Brazil

Young activist, young photographer

Photography, my way of life

Other Americas

Images of a world in distress

From Magnum to Amazonas Images

Workers

The world of the mines

Migrations

Mozambique: the long road back

Rwanda

Looking death in the face

Instituto Terra: the realization of utopia

Back to the beginning

And where are the humans in all this?

Respect for origins

My digital revolution

In the footsteps of the Queen of Sheba

A world in black and white

The Nenets

My own tribe

Conclusion

Bibliography

Honors and Awards

Preface

To look at a photograph by Sebastião Salgado is to experience human dignity, to comprehend what it means to be a woman, a man, a child. Sebastião undeniably nurtures a deep affection for the people he photographs. Otherwise, how could we feel them to be so close, alive and trusting? How could we explain that sense of fraternity as we look at them? For a long time, I have found his work deeply moving. I love the flamboyant aesthetic of his images, their constantly extraordinary light, the power they transmit, but also the tenderness they emanate, which brings me back to the best in myself. The coincidences of life gave me the chance to meet Sebastião and his wife Lélia. I am enchanted by this pair because, behind Sebastião’s international reputation, lies the success story of a rare couple. A story of love and hard work, in which each has his own role to play, his own place and knows exactly what he owes to the other. Together they have built a family, established their own agency, Amazonas Images, they have created Instituto Terra, an environmental project to replant the forest of Brazil’s Atlantic coastline, to which they devote the majority of the income deriving from his work and the sale of prints from his collections.I realized that while Sebastião’s images have travelled all over the world, little was known of his own story and the political, ethical and existential roots of his photographic commitment. I wanted to remedy this, to give Sebastião a voice through my journalist’s pen. He was kind enough to agree, the day before the presentation of his Genesis project—a series of reportages devoted to protected sites on the planet. Between one flight and another, one reportage and another, and despite preparing two books and the openings of his exhibition all over the world, he placed himself at my disposal. With a kindness and simplicity that were disarming, he retraced his journey for me, laying bare his beliefs, allowing me to share his sentiments. It was an enormous pleasure to listen to him and I would now like to share his skill as a raconteur. It is the authenticity of a man who knows how to combine activism and professionalism, talent and generosity.

Isabelle Francq

In the beginning: Genesis

Giant tortoise. Isabela Island, Galápagos, Ecuador, 2004

If you don’t like to wait, you can’t be a photographer. Once, I arrived on Isabela Island, in the Galápagos, beside a magnificent volcano called Alcedo. This was in 2004. There was a giant tortoise, an enormous creature weighing at least two hundred kilos: one of those who gave the archipelago its name. Every time I approached, the tortoise moved away and although it wasn’t walking fast, I could never manage to photograph it.

So I started to think and told myself that when I photograph human beings, I never land in the middle of a group , I am always introduced. Then I introduce myself to everyone, I explain, I talk and, gradually, we get to know each other. I realized that, in the same fashion, the only way in which I was going to photograph this tortoise was to get to know it, to get onto its wavelength. So I began to imitate its behaviour: I crouched down and began to move at its height, hands and knees on the ground. From that moment onwards, the tortoise no longer moved away.