Genesis

On Thursday, Rachel and I went to a photography exhibition of Sebastiao Salgado’s Genesis project.

After the 9 hour queue for Tour 13, the 1 hour wait to get into La Maison Européenne de la Photographie was negligible and soon we were amidst the hundreds of black-and-white photos that comprise Salgado’s exhibition.

Taken in 32 countries around the world, the collection of photos shot over 8 years is intended to capture the unspoiled beauty of the natural world – “the unblemished face of nature and humanity” - and of tribes unaffected by modern civilisation, living in harmony with nature. 

The photos themselves were absolutely stunning and it proved impossible to appreciate each of the 200-strong photos as they deserved. Many were surreal and if it weren’t for the explanatory plaques, which grounded each photo to a particular geographical place and time, it would have been hard to believe the spectacular scenes of the photographs were real and not a product of Photoshop and imagination.







This impression was only augmented when, in the Africa room of the exhibition, Rachel and I found Salgado’s shots from Ethiopia, of things and places we’d seen first-hand. One of his photos was of the endemic Gelada baboon, which we’d seen in the Simien Mountains National Park, and another was of the seemingly never-ending rolling hills of Lalibela. This photo looked as if it were taken from the exact spot at which we had stopped to take our own photo and became a kind of evidence that all of Salgado’s photographs, despite their fantastical qualities, were truly documenting our epic planet.

 

Spot the Salgado: his photo of Lalibela, Ethiopia

Spot the Salgado: my photo of Lalibela, Ethiopia