Fines for tampering with electricity meter range between SR5000 and SR100000 New amendments made in Electricity Law    Saudi Arabia deports 8,051 illegal residents in a week    Saudi Arabia is among world's top donors with assistance worth SR528 billion    GCC – Japan negotiations make progress in sealing free trade agreement    Inzaghi hails Al Hilal's fearless Club World Cup run    UNRWA calls for urgent fuel delivery to Gaza to prevent shutdown of basic services    Syria rules out foreign borrowing as central bank hails post-Assad recovery    Pakistan army kills 30 militants in cross-border clash near Afghanistan    State of emergency declared in Crete after wildfire devastates Ierapetra    OPEC+ further accelerates oil output hike by 548,000 bpd in August    Football world mourns Diogo Jota and brother André Silva at funeral in Portugal    Al Hilal exit Club World Cup after narrow defeat to Fluminense    Saudi Arabia tops global ICT Development Index for 2025    Hotel occupancy in Saudi Arabia rises to 63% as tourism workforce tops 983,000 in Q1 2025    Alkhorayef Commercial Company partners with XSQUARE Technologies to elevate logistics automation in Saudi Arabia    Portugal and Liverpool FC winger Diogo Jota dies in car accident in Spain    Michael Madsen, actor of 'Kill Bill' and 'Reservoir Dogs' fame, dead at 67    BTS are back: K-pop band confirm new album and tour    Michelin Guide launches in Saudi Arabia with phased rollout in 2025    'How fragile we are': Roskilde Festival tragedy remembered 25 years on    Sholay: Bollywood epic roars back to big screen after 50 years with new ending    Ministry launches online booking for slaughterhouses on eve of Eid Al-Adha    Shah Rukh Khan makes Met Gala debut in Sabyasachi    Pakistani star's Bollywood return excites fans and riles far right    Exotic Taif Roses Simulation Performed at Taif Rose Festival    Asian shares mixed Tuesday    Weather Forecast for Tuesday    Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai    Minister of Industry Announces 50 Investment Opportunities Worth over SAR 96 Billion in Machinery, Equipment Sector    HRH Crown Prince Offers Condolences to Crown Prince of Kuwait on Death of Sheikh Fawaz Salman Abdullah Al-Ali Al-Malek Al-Sabah    HRH Crown Prince Congratulates Santiago Peña on Winning Presidential Election in Paraguay    SDAIA Launches 1st Phase of 'Elevate Program' to Train 1,000 Women on Data, AI    41 Saudi Citizens and 171 Others from Brotherly and Friendly Countries Arrive in Saudi Arabia from Sudan    Saudi Arabia Hosts 1st Meeting of Arab Authorities Controlling Medicines    General Directorate of Narcotics Control Foils Attempt to Smuggle over 5 Million Amphetamine Pills    NAVI Javelins Crowned as Champions of Women's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Competitions    Saudi Karate Team Wins Four Medals in World Youth League Championship    Third Edition of FIFA Forward Program Kicks off in Riyadh    Evacuated from Sudan, 187 Nationals from Several Countries Arrive in Jeddah    SPA Documents Thajjud Prayer at Prophet's Mosque in Madinah    SFDA Recommends to Test Blood Sugar at Home Two or Three Hours after Meals    SFDA Offers Various Recommendations for Safe Food Frying    SFDA Provides Five Tips for Using Home Blood Pressure Monitor    SFDA: Instant Soup Contains Large Amounts of Salt    Mawani: New shipping service to connect Jubail Commercial Port to 11 global ports    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Delivers Speech to Pilgrims, Citizens, Residents and Muslims around the World    Sheikh Al-Issa in Arafah's Sermon: Allaah Blessed You by Making It Easy for You to Carry out This Obligation. Thus, Ensure Following the Guidance of Your Prophet    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques addresses citizens and all Muslims on the occasion of the Holy month of Ramadan    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Sebastiao Salgado: Capturing light through a journey of darkness
Published in The Saudi Gazette on 07 - 05 - 2016

[gallery td_select_gallery_slide="slide" ids="53587,53585,53584"]
Roberta Fedele
Saudi Gazette
Absorbed by our daily life and identified with ethno-cultural labels, we tend to forget our status as tiny, interconnected particles within a universe that is a single living organism, one big sea of energy. The powerful, Brazilian black and white photographer, Sebastiao Salgado, uses the universal language of photography to remind us of the reality of the planet and the dignity of every living being.
"Like music, photography is a direct language that doesn't need translation. What you ‘write' through photography in Saudi Arabia can be ‘read' in Brazil or Japan. Photography narrates the real history of humanity. It's the mirror of our societies," Salgado said during a recent trip to Saudi Arabia with his son, Rodrigo, and his wife and creative partner, Lelia Deluiz Wanick, to attend an exceptional solo exhibition of his photographs in Jeddah organized by Hafez Gallery and curated by Lelia.
It doesn't happen every day for a photographer to access a beautiful yet closed and unknown country like Saudi Arabia, especially a photographer like Salgado, who likes to uncover societies' hidden essence.
In the last 40 years, the 72-years old photographer, with a major in Economics, has travelled in dangerous and extreme conditions through more than 100 countries observing deprived societies in the remote corners of the world.
Salgado's impressive expeditions, beautifully narrated in the documentary "The Salt of the Earth" (2014) by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, resulted in majestic social photography projects such as "Other Americas" (1977-1984), "Workers" (1993), "Migrations" (2000) and "Genesis" (2004-2011). These projects document the agony and splendor of the earth, showing the greatness of its most neglected creatures.
Although he shot in color for magazines like the New York Times at the beginning of his career, Salgado was never a color photographer: "Reality is not in black and white but transforming all colors in different levels of grey allowed me to concentrate on the dignity and personalities of the people and tell their stories," the photographer said. He still largely works in film, but has begun using digital cameras since 2008. "I don't know how to edit on a computer. My assistant produces contact sheets for me and I continue to edit as I did during all my life."
The exhibit displayed some of his photographs from Latin America in the seventies, and a selection of images from "Genesis," including penguins and icebergs of the Antarctic Peninsula, buffalos and elephants in Zambia, marine iguanas in the Galapagos Islands, whales off Argentina, sand dunes in Namibia and Algeria, the Nenet people of Siberia, and, of course, the spectacular photographs of a Gold Mine in Brazil (1986) and the dramatic images of the catastrophic oil pipelines burning during the first Gulf war in Kuwait (1990).
Salgado considers the Kuwait series one of the most striking bodies of work he ever did: "It was the most spectacular experience I had in my life. It was amazing to see 50 meters columns of fire. It was terrible. It was the apocalypse."
Talking about Saudi Arabia, a country mainly known for being one of the biggest oil producers in the planet, Salgado expressed his wish to explore more the country and recalled his visit to the Masmak fort in Riyadh a few days earlier: "walking inside the fort you realize how until 50 years ago Saudi Arabia was a poor country and how the history of humanity is everywhere a history of fight. The pictures there are a lesson for everyone."
He also emphasized how countries like Saudi Arabia represent the exception of the planet: "Just by crossing a slice of Red Sea, you get catapulted from Saudi Arabia to Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, in a world of misery and famine that is the most diffused human condition."
"We need to listen to the words of the people on the land. If we don't have some kind of spiritual return to our planet, I fear that we will be compromised," he said during an interview for the exhibit's catalogue.
Salgado discovered the light through a journey of darkness. After witnessing the silent drama of manual workers and mass migration of people driven by hunger, natural disasters and wars, he found a way of positively contributing to the evolution of the earth through the Genesis project and Instituto Terra (Earth Institute), celebrating nature in both a photographic and concrete way.
For Genesis, Salgado traveled for eight years to places still untouched by modern civilization to photograph landscapes, animals and people that recall the period of the Genesis.
While Instituto Terra is specialized in reviving the forests of Salgado's former family property in Brazil transformed today into a natural reserve. The Instituto was conceived during a difficult moment in the photographer's life.
"In Rwanda I somatized all the violence I saw and got sick. This coincided with the inheritance from my parents of a desert and sterile land that used to be filled with rainforests and rural life during my childhood. In the nineties Lelia come up with the idea of restoring the old paradise it was," Salgado said.
To recuperate this big slice of land it was necessary to plant 2.5 million trees. Today Sebastiao and Lelia have around 2.3 million trees. They have practically recuperated their land and have transformed it into a national park: "We don't own the land anymore. And most of the money we earn goes to Instituto Terra," Salgado said.
"A tree is house to tens of thousands of animals. When you put 2.3 million trees together, there is a lot of life there," Salgado said, and stressed the importance for people to realize the equal dignity of every living being on the planet.
Salgado didn't choose to become a social photographer nor an environmental activist: "The fact that I come from an underdeveloped country where there are many social movements of people fighting for a better life gave a social character to my photography. It was a natural process. Photography became my language."
"In the same way, I never used to be an ecological activist. It happened spontaneously," Salgado said, demonstrating how observation, awareness and presence of mind generate a natural inclination and feeling for the community.
Today, Salgado and Lelia's project has became a way of life and one of the biggest Brazilian projects with a nursery producing 1.2 million trees each year.
"Instituto Terra in Brazil is our biggest and most precious achievement. Photography was the means."


Clic here to read the story from its source.