Book Description
GENESIS is the magnum opus of world-renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado, a monumental project completed over eight years and across more than thirty remote regions of the planet. Through breathtaking black-and-white photography, Salgado documents the Earth in its most untouched state — its mountains, oceans, deserts, wildlife, and indigenous communities — revealing a vision of the planet as it once was, before the full imprint of modern civilization.
Salgado’s photographic journey began in 1970, when he first picked up a camera and instantly discovered his life’s purpose. Raised on a farm in Brazil, he developed a deep respect for nature and an enduring concern for the human condition. His earlier landmark series Workers and Migrations explored labor, displacement, and resilience. GENESIS, however, marks a return to origins — a spiritual expedition to reconnect humanity with nature.
Over the course of eight years, Salgado ventured from the equator to the poles, traveling by foot, canoe, light aircraft, and even hot-air balloon through extreme climates and remote landscapes. His lens captures the raw beauty of life across the globe: the volcanic islands and wildlife of the Galápagos, penguins and whales of Antarctica, the Zo’é tribe in the Amazon, lions and elephants on the African savannah, the volcanoes of Kamchatka, the glaciers of Alaska, and the boundless dunes of the Sahara.
“Forty-six percent of our planet remains as it was in the time of genesis,” Salgado reminds us. “We must preserve what still exists.” GENESIS is his love letter to the Earth — a visual hymn to the planet’s enduring beauty and a call for environmental awareness. In harmony with the mission of the Instituto Terra, founded by Salgado and his wife, the project urges humanity to protect and restore our shared home.
Through masterful chiaroscuro imagery, GENESIS reveals the deep serenity and grandeur of the natural world, and the fragile yet powerful interconnection between humans, nature, and time itself. More than a photography book, it is an invitation to reflect on how we might once again live in balance with the planet that sustains us.
Details
Editor: Lélia Wanick Salgado
Photographer: Sebastião Salgado
Publisher: TASCHEN
Year: 2025
Format: Hardcover
Size: 21 × 15 cm
Pages: 512 pages