GRA 2330 Digital Photography Thursday Fall 2014

The Sebastiao Salgado show Genesis displayed black and white photographs of nature and the people who lives in it. I would generally say there were about 200 photographs in this exhibit. These photographs were categorized as Northern Space, Sanctuaries, Africa, Planet South, and Amazonia and Pantanal. When I got to the exhibit there was a tour going on with audience consistent of young adult to much old adults. As I was there I also saw other students looking around as well as some sitting down reading. I believe Sebastiao Salgado named his project Genesis to show us the amazing moments nature has given us. With the photographs consist of animals and human colliding together with nature living in peace.

In this exhibit the photographs were consist of animals in their natural habitat, people of Africa, beautiful views of nature taking its course. All these were all taken in white and black, there were no photographs taken in color. I believe the reason for this is that Sebastiao wanted us to see these in black and white. Generally black and white photographs gives off a meaning to being old and precious. Nature has been with us since the beginning. Having these photos taken in black and white allows us to embrace nature and remind us of what nature has given us and what nature has created. No technology involved just nature.

One of the many photographs I love in the exhibit would be the mountain and volcano. The photo description says “A tundra valley extends between the Tolbachik and Kamen volcanos. In the background, a line of clouds separates a “small” crater some 2,600 feet high from the huge base of Kamen Volcano, which rises 15,000 feet above sea level. Kamchatka. Russia. 2006.”. Just looking at it is amazing. At first I couldn’t believe this was real. It just seem like a picture someone photo shopped. That huge Kamen Volcano is the background is just insane. The size of it compared to the mountains below it. The black and white really brings out the real nature of the volcano as well as the clouds. This photo uses long shot as well as wide depth of field. You can clearly see the surroundings of the volcano. It is also a balance / centered image. This photograph also gives off a very high contrast color.

This exhibit is generally about nature. It is trying to show us what nature has created throughout millions of years. It is showing us places that has been forgotten and that we should pay more attention to. For Sebastiao to take all of these photos in black and white I believe hes trying to have us remember these moments we live in. Moments that nature created for us, for this planet.

The Sebastiao Selgado show is a series of black and white photographs taken in untouched parts of the world. By untouched I mean areas of the world that have no sort of urban life or culture. There were two floors and each part of the world was categorized by sections on the walls. The purpose of the show is to bring awareness to these rare settings and the possibility that they will cease to exist eventually. Many different forms of wildlife, lands, and tribe’s are demonstrated in these photographs. The first floor photographs mainly consisted climate’s in the arctic and how they are changing. I believe that the photographs do a great job in demonstrating the settings that are being shown. My favorite photo’s involve the arctic climate’s.

The bottom floor consisted of wildlife, and the tribe’s that have existed in their unique and ancient lifestyle’s for generations. My favorite section would have been the Amazonian. I think these photographs really capture the extremely strict customs that these tribe’s go by that most of us would never imagine doing. These unique ways of life are truly shown in these photographs. Two specific photographs I recall include the living conditions of one of the tribes, which includes living in a tree house very high up in a tree. These tree houses look extremely unsafe with multiple people living in them so high up along with the build of the tree house looking a bit fragile.

The exhibition didn’t seem to focus on the climate change but focused more on what is currently there and showing a present/before things change for the worse. I personally wish I could see a few of the images in color out of curiosity. But overall it was enjoyable being exposed to these photo’s.

ICP is holding Sebastiao Salgados gallery called Genesis which is his series of black and white pictures on global issues. As soon as I walked in and got my ticket from the counter a few steps from the counter you can see the photographers name and the name of the gallery Genesis in bold at the wall with his picture of an Iceberg between Paulet and the South Islands on the Antartic Channel. There were two floor 1st floor and an underground/basement with more than 200 black and white photographs of wildlife, landscapes, seascapes, and indigenous people of different tribes of different countries. Its titled Genesis as it’s raising public awareness about the pressing issues of  environment and the climate change.

The subject matter of the exhibit was to show the part of the world that are untouched from the urban cities/life and also to show how people used to live. Every photograph was taken in black and white and what I saw in the gallery where landscapes, seascape, indigenous tribes and different kinds of animals in their natural habitat. Other than the minimum glacier present in the Antarctic photographs of the penguins, we don’r really see any result of climate changes, I’m guessing to show that we got to raise awareness for climate change as place like this and the people and animal living in it will have a huge impact from the climate change.

I loved the picture of a Galapagos giant tortoise because as it shows shallow depth of field on a eye level view with the focus on the tortoise itself with some exposure compensation to get more details of the tortoise as it is the main focus of the photograph. The fact that they can live more than 150 years  and Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution at Galapagos Island and Darwin used to have a pet Galapagos giant tortoise called Harriet   (c. 1830 – June 23, 2006) which lived past Darwins death and lived until 175 years which is astonishing.

(Picture from the gallery, not the picture of Harriet) 

The gallery is named Genesis as it shows how the world used to be before we started to modernize and slowly forgot to take care of  Earth. This gallery takes us back in time were it was just simply to live and survive from the land. The whole gallery sums up to show what we are trying to save from the climate change, the ingenious tribes and animals that rely on the land, and the changes in the climate is having or will have a huge impact on us and them. This gallery brings an awareness to show, what we will lose to climate change if we let it happen which would be the end of our becoming.