From my Land to the Planet
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
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
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Weaving together autobiography, political exposition, global history, and meditations on evolution and globalization, Salgado takes an unapologetic look back on his career as a photographer, providing thought-provoking background to his unfailingly difficult photo endeavors. Spanning seven decades, the book takes readers from the expansive State of Minas Gerias, Salgado's birthplace, to the bitterly cold Yamal Peninsula of Siberia, to the troglodyte churches of Ethiopia, which took Salgado "into the heart of the earth and the dawn of time." His narrative often approaches the mythological, as the artist circles back to his origins, returning to Minas Gerias with his wife Lelia to restore the 93% of Brazil's Atlantic Forest that have been destroyed with increasing rapidity over the last few decades, and subsequently embarking on Genesis, a reportage devoted to untouched landscapes. Yet, it can be jarring to read stories of horrific violence in Mozembique and Rwanda along with overly technical passages concerning particular types and sizes of film and fundraising politics. Nevertheless, admirers of Salgado's art will find this self-portrait rich and illuminating.
