Sebastião Salgado has worked in Africa since the very beginning of his career. His first reportage in Niger dates back to the 1970s, followed by coverage of the independence wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Spanish Sahara. Over the years, he documented many of the catastrophes that affected African populations: the devastating droughts in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Chad; the genocide in Rwanda; and the suffering of thousands of refugees crowded into makeshift camps, starving in the streets, dying from thirst, or succumbing to epidemics. Yet Salgado also photographed Africans engaged in farming and fishing, as well as those returning home after years of exile.

More recently, Sebastião Salgado returned to Africa to capture the pride and beauty of the continent: the dunes of Namibia and the Himba people who inhabit them; the Dinka communities of South Sudan; the mountain gorillas and volcanic landscapes of the Virunga region spanning Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. These photographs form part of his ongoing Genesis project — a series of black-and-white photographic studies of landscapes, wildlife, plant life, and human communities. Conceived as an exploration of the planet in its still-pristine state, the project seeks to document the enduring beauty of the natural world before it disappears.

DETAILS • Author: Sebastião Salgado • Publisher: Taschen • Format: Hardcover