Genesis sings of the magnitude of the purity of the earth, shows threatened animal species, and shows native people on different continents. The exhibition is the largest in the history of photography and had about three-and-a-half million visitors in forty-seven different museums, more than double than the exhibition Family of Man. The voluminous book of Genesis has been printed more than six hundred thousand times. ‍

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‍‍After he stopped as an economist, Sebastião Salgado began a career as a social documentary photographer. He made haunting images of starving people in the Sahel, photographed miners in Brazil, did the project Workers on human labor, and made the project Migrations on global migration. In the end, photographing human misery became too heavy for him, especially after the civil wars in Rwanda and Congo for his project, Exodus. Genesis became a mega project for eight years.  

With his singing voice of a Brazilian, he speaks emotionally about his project. "We, my wife Lélia and I, came up with the entire story of Genesis and worked it out. We got the idea to travel down the planet earth to see which parts of the world were still pure and untouched. For Genesis, I have made thirty-two stories in eight years, from the North Pole to the South Pole. We had no idea about what we would find because it was the first time in my life that I would photograph landscapes and animals. Until then, I had only photographed one animal species in my career: the human being. So, it was an exceptional challenge."

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The beginning

The title Genesis should not be seen as religious, according to Salgado. "Genesis is the beginning, as the planet was before the homo sapiens began to change it about 70,000 years ago. We, humans, have spread around the globe and have destroyed a lot. But 45 percent of the planet is still intact. The title Genesis does not refer to a religious dimension. We don't believe in any god, but we use the word as it is used in the Bible. Genesis simply means the beginning. In the Amazon still live hundreds of indigenous groups with whom no contact has been made. We did this project in the hope that all there is, can be preserved for the future. That is necessary if we are to survive as a species."

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"In the end I am a cousin of the iguana

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Colony of termites

Salgado, being one of the most famous photographers, is a man of great modesty. He does not abide in fame, and he does not speak of himself as a hero, but rather as part of the grandeur of nature. "At the end of the whole project, I discovered that the greatest trip I made was not to the North pole or the South Pole was but was the trip to myself. I discovered that we are all nature. We are just one of the many species in the great kingdom of animals. We often think about ourselves as being very important, but we are just as important as a colony of termites. If we humans disappear, it means nothing to the planet. In the past, many species have become extinct, and for the development of the Earth, it had no specific consequences. When I started this project, I was a big pessimist. I was very disappointed about human beings when I made the book Exodus, and I wanted to leave photography behind me. We left for Brazil and started to replant the forests that have existed in my youth. We planted more than two million trees and more than three hundred species of plants. That is how we came up with the idea of ​​starting the Genesis project."

‍Sea iguana as a cousin

Salgado explains why Africa is a special chapter in the book, Genesis: "Many of the hotspots, where many disappearing species of animals and plants exist are located in Africa. Personally, I think Africa is the most important continent. There, I have found the greatest biodiversity and the largest ecosystems. There are still tribes in Africa that live in a very pure way, and I had the privilege to stay for a while with the Bushmen in Botswana. In Africa, I have seen landscapes that you have nowhere else."

The Amazon is the homeland of Salgado and obviously got a special focus in his project. "I made a chapter about Amazon during six different journeys. I found the Amazon so important that I will go back there shooting a separate project. I want to publish a separate book, which will appear after about four years. Pantanal is the southern part of the Amazon and is essentially the same ecosystem, but it consists only of the swamp. In Pantanal, many animals appear just for your nose."

Whale friend

As if it happened yesterday, Salgado talks about his special friendship with a whale. "We came close to a whale with a seven-meter boat. Normally a mother whale never comes close to a boat. One morning she came alongside, and I could touch her like a dog. Alas, it was so great! She could have capsized our boat with her body, but that never happened. We became friends, which was so much fun! The scientists who accompanied us gave the baby the name Sebastião and It's a shame that the Japanese still hunt whales. In this way, the largest of the animal kingdom will perish."

When Sebastião Salgado arrived at the large print of the sea iguana on the Galápagos Islands, he explains the kinship he felt with the prehistoric beast that Charles Darwin first discovered. "When I turned my macro lens on him, I saw a kinship with the medieval knight. And look at my own hand, we have essentially the same structure! He is close there at a dinosaur with me, but when I saw his claw, I understood he was a close relative. In the end, I am a cousin of the iguana."

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For more information see Amazonas Images