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Sahara, South of Djanet, Algeria (Man Praying), 2009 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Fireball, Greater Burhan Oil Field, Kuwait, 1991 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

I looked through a lens and ended up abandoning everything else. – Sebastião Salgado

For the photographer Sebastião Salgado, photography is not an artistic medium, it is a language, “my life, my way of doing things.” Photography for him is a way of bringing to light the reality of the human condition. His photos, while deeply compassionate aim to highlight man’s terrible potential, the dark side of human nature. Covering pressing social issues across the world, he has worked on a number of assignments and long-term reportages throughout his industrious career. He’s documented the Serra-Pelada gold mines in Brazil, witnessed the crippling famine in Africa, reported from ground-level on the environmental devastation of the oil fields in Kuwait, and captured the mass-exodus of repressed people fleeing the Rwandan genocide.

To look at one of Salgado’s photographs, it’s not easy to come away without being touched in some way; the image stays with you, haunting and undeniably beautiful. The unsparing pictures that make up his oeuvre now stand as a testament to our troubled history, a history shaped by wars and repression.

Other noted projects of Salgado’s include Workers, a chronicle of manual labour in twenty-six countries across the world and Genesis his tribute to planet earth, a quest to capture nature in its untouched state. As he now turns his lens onto other species, Salgado has learned to appreciate the trees, ants and termites of the forests, valuing their importance as a part of the ever-changing world around us.

Now filling the entire gallery space at the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica, is a large-scale retrospective of Salgado’s work. Comprised of almost seventy prints, the exhibition will showcase over three decades of work including iconic images from his major bodies of work, along with rare singular images from the gallery’s preeminent collection.

Peter Fetterman Gallery, 2525 Michigan Avenue, #A1. Santa Monica, CA 90404. Showing until June 11, 2016.

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Chinstrap Penguins on an iceberg located between Zavodovski and Visokoi islands. South Sandwich Islands, 2009 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

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A Meeting of a Religious Community in Base, on the road to Attilo, Chimborazo, Ecuador, 1982
© Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Church Gate Station, Western Railroad Line, Bombay India, 1995 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Gold mine, Serra Pelada, Brazil [Figure Eight], 1986 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Elephant (Against light), Kafue National Park, Zambia, 2010 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Eastern Part of the Brooks Range, Alaska, USA (Vertical), 2009 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Dinka cattle camp of Amak at the end of the day, when the herd is back in the camp for the night. This is the most active time in the camp, Southern Sudan, 2006 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Fishing in the Piulaga Laguna during the Kuarup ceremony of the Waura Group, Upper Xingu Basin, Mato Grosso, Brazil, 2005 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Iceberg between Paulet Island & the Shetlands Islands, Antarctica, 2005 © Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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Coffee-producing village of Uning Berteh, Pusat Gayo Higland, Sumatra Island, Indonesia, 2014
© Amazonas Images/Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

 

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