The Brazilian
photographer Sebastiao Salgado has shown the world the face of poverty, the
tragedy of famine and the sweat of hard labour.
Now Mother Nature
is attracting the world-renowned master of black-and-white stills.
Salgado is chasing
animals in the wild, taking pictures of pristine landscapes and indigenous
tribes that still live in balance with the environment.
The project he
calls Genesis has taken the 61-year-old to the Xingu reservation in Brazil's
Amazon, clicking away in a white hat and shirt among dancing, painted Indians.
"We live in
disharmony with the universe, as if we were not part of it," says Salgado,
sitting in a hammock in Waura village in Xingu.
Salgado's most
famous pictures have often shown the grim side of life in refugee and worker
communities across the world, such as his 1986 images of miners in Brazil's
Serra Pelada mine swarming over the earth like ants.
In a previous
project called Exodus, he focused on the fate of poor farmers forced to abandon
their land for an uncertain future in big cities all over the world.
Born in Minas
Gerais state in 1944, he trained as an economist and switched to photography in
1973. Among his other famed works are his photos of the 1981 assassination
attempt on Ronald Reagan, the only stills taken of the attack.
The theme of
Genesis also has its gloomy overtones. It is designed to show how modern man is
losing contact with the earth and is an attempt to rediscover the lost link and
promote conservation efforts.
"We try to
feel more and more in control in an urban society but we are losing
balance," Salgado says.
The Indians called
him Kaki, or "Salty", the translation of his Portuguese last name.
The reservation,
in central Brazil,
is home to about 5000 of the country's indigenous population of about 700,000.
Though the number
of Brazilian Indians is growing, it is still tiny compared with the estimated 6
million population before the arrival of the Portuguese more than 500 years
ago. Centuries of abuse, enslavement and illnesses wiped out many tribes. As a
result, Salgado is aiming his lenses at animals for the first time. But he says
he is treating them just as humans, trying to understand them and photograph
them "with passion".
"It's the
first time that I decided to photograph other animals, beyond man," he
says, adding that he quickly discovered how not to scare the wild creatures
away, be they giant Galapagos turtles or jungle beasts.
"If you come
walking on foot they go away, but if you come on your knees, at their height,
they accept you."
Salgado has
already visited the Galapagos Islands with their rich fauna, and Patagonia's coast where he took pictures of whales. After
Xingu, he will travel to Africa and photograph
elements of tribal life and nature.
The project will
last for eight years.
Salgado's
pro-nature drive should not only produce exhibitions and coffee-table books,
but educational materials and tree replanting in Brazil's decimated Atlantic
rainforest.
