Looking back into history
Grand Canyon, Sebastião Salgado, 2013
The result of eight years’ work, Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis project is an epic project showing wildlife, unspoilt landscapes and indigenous people living as they have for thousands of years. “46 per cent of the planet is still as it was in the time of genesis,” Salgado writes. “We must preserve what exists.”
This typically grand image shows the junction of the Colorado and the Little Colorado rivers, close to the Grand Canyon National Park. In its composition, control of contrast and tonal variation, it is the work of a master photographer in what is probably his last major project.
Life and times
Although Brazilian-born Salgado has been an internationally renowned photographer since the 1990s, he
has a PhD in Economics from the University of São Paolo. He worked as an economist until 1973, when he began his photographic career.
Salgado joined Magnum Photos in 1979 and founded his own agency, Amazonas Images, in 1994. His work often documents the lives of the poor and those marginalised in the modern world; his projects are self-assigned, long-term and on a global scale.
Salgado’s major projects, each years in the making, have included
Migrations (2000) and Genesis (2013), published by TASCHEN. The scope and scale of Salgado’s work make him one of the most important photographers working today.
Innovations and advances
The Sony Cyber-Shot QX10 and QX100, two lens-style cameras which clip to smartphones and link via WiFi, were announced in September 2013. The QX10 has an 18.2 megapixel CMOS sensor and 10x optical zoom, while the QX100 has a 20.2 megapixel sensor and a 3.6x zoom.
The first compact system camera with an Android-based operating system, the Galaxy NX, went on sale in October 2013. Samsung has announced that all its future cameras will have built-in Wi-Fi and NFC.
The Leica T, the German manufacturer’s new mirrorless compact system camera, went on sale in May 2014. Features include a 3.7inch touchscreen LCD and built-in Wi-Fi. It marked 100 years since the first Leica prototype was made.