Genesis - Sebastiao Salgado photo exhibition at Natural History Museum, London

I chose to visit this exhibition on a trip to London a few weeks ago, as I was interested to see his view of some wilderness areas of the world and some of the indigenous peoples who survive. To my mind, this is the adventurous frontier of travel photography, following in the footsteps of National Geographic photographers over many decades. According to Lelia Wanick Salgado, the curator of the exhibition (and the photographer's wife) the aim was to photograph people and places that "so far have escaped the long reach of today's world".
The photographs are extremely eye-catching monochrome images. My notes on the style of the photographs included:-

• Extreme contrast - dark greys and whites. 
• Limited midtones - gives a "wet look" to foliage. 
• The composition and lighting gives an iconic quality to the places and people. 
• It does not however look like the real world.  

Laura Cumming writing in The Observer on 14th April 2013 wrote : Salgado's habitual monochrome runs all the way from coal black to silver and burning white, with a thousand tones of grey in between. The lighting is characteristically spectacular, with plenty of backlighting and operatic contrasts.
I think that the Genesis photographs are somewhat similar in style to those of Larry Louie, a winner of the Travel Photographer of the Year in 2010. In an earlier blog on some of Larry's Indonesian photographs, I commented that:-
The composition and enormous tonal range make the images strongly eye-catching and he clearly merited the Photographer of the Year award. I would differ however with the observation made on his website that his photography is "Realism at its best". For me, on the contrary, these photographs portray an visually exaggerated view of these scenes and places. The images seem to be touched up that they represent an imaginary ideal of the world. This is somewhat similar to the comment that images of women in magazines do not portray what women are actually like. These are very memorable images, but they convey little sense of the actual place.
I had exactly similar feelings about the Genesis photographs. In fact, I think that hyperrealism may be a suitable term to describe this style. The saturated colours may be replaced by saturated blacks and saturated whites, but the visual effect is quite similar. 
For a couple of the locations in Patagonia, I had taken pictures of the same locations. I have included two  examples:
Perito Moreno Glacier

 







One would not guess by Salgado's 2007 picture from a higher location that this is "one of the major tourist attractions in southern Patagonia. It is less than two hours by bus from El Calafate (airport) and many tour companies run daily visits. A large visitor centre at the site features a walking circuit which allows visitors to view the southern flank and east facing edge of the glacier" according to Wikipedia. I think that Salgado's photograph was taken before the walkways were constructed to prevent erosion of the soil due to the large number of tourists.
Cerro Torre

 












Salgado's 2007 picture of this scene is taken in clear weather from further back.  This is a stunning spot, which is not yet visited by coach loads of tourists. It is however "the stuff of climbers dreams" according to the Adventure Journal. They estimate that no more than a thousand people have ever stepped foot on the top of Cerro Torre, one of the hardest climbs in the world. Many more will have trecked in the surrounding national park. This is no longer, therefore, the absolute wilderness. Ironically, some of the visitors may have been prompted to travel to such locations as a result of seeing the dramatically lit iconic images that Salgado has produced.