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Sebastião Salgado. Kuwait. a Desert on Fire
"We must remember that in the brutality of battle another such apocalypse is always just around the corner." --Sebastião Salgado
In January and February 1991, as the United States-led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's troops retaliated with an inferno. At some 700 oil wells and an unspecified number of oil-filled low-lying areas they ignited vast, raging fires, creating one of the worst environmental disasters in living memory.
As the desperate efforts to contain and extinguish the conflagration progressed, Sebastião Salgado traveled to Kuwait to witness the crisis firsthand. The conditions were excruciating. The heat was so vicious that Salgado's smallest lens warped. A journalist and another photographer were killed when a slick ignited as they crossed it. Sticking close to the firefighters, and with characteristic sensitivity to both human and environmental impact, Salgado captured the terrifying scale of this "huge theater the size of the planet" the ravaged landscape; the sweltering temperatures; the air choking on charred sand and soot; the blistered remains of camels; the sand still littered with cluster bombs; and the flames and smoke soaring to the skies, blocking out the sunlight, dwarfing the oil-coated firefighters.
Salgado's epic pictures first appeared in the New York Times Magazine in June 1991 and were subsequently awarded the Oskar Barnack Award, recognizing outstanding images on the relationship between man and the environment. Kuwait: A Desert on Fire is the first monograph of this astonishing series. Like Genesis, Exodus, and The Children, it is as much a major document of modern history as an extraordinary body of photographic work.
In January and February 1991, as the United States-led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's troops retaliated with an inferno. At some 700 oil wells and an unspecified number of oil-filled low-lying areas they ignited vast, raging fires, creating one of the worst environmental disasters in living memory.
As the desperate efforts to contain and extinguish the conflagration progressed, Sebastião Salgado traveled to Kuwait to witness the crisis firsthand. The conditions were excruciating. The heat was so vicious that Salgado's smallest lens warped. A journalist and another photographer were killed when a slick ignited as they crossed it. Sticking close to the firefighters, and with characteristic sensitivity to both human and environmental impact, Salgado captured the terrifying scale of this "huge theater the size of the planet" the ravaged landscape; the sweltering temperatures; the air choking on charred sand and soot; the blistered remains of camels; the sand still littered with cluster bombs; and the flames and smoke soaring to the skies, blocking out the sunlight, dwarfing the oil-coated firefighters.
Salgado's epic pictures first appeared in the New York Times Magazine in June 1991 and were subsequently awarded the Oskar Barnack Award, recognizing outstanding images on the relationship between man and the environment. Kuwait: A Desert on Fire is the first monograph of this astonishing series. Like Genesis, Exodus, and The Children, it is as much a major document of modern history as an extraordinary body of photographic work.
205 pages, Hardcover
Published October 15, 2016
About the author
Sebastião Salgado
82 books197 followersSebastião Ribeiro Salgado Júnior was a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist.
He traveled in over 120 countries for his photographic projects. Most of these have appeared in numerous press publications and books. Touring exhibitions of his work have been presented throughout the world.
Salgado was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant in 1982, Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992; and the Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in 1993. He was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts at the Institut de France since April 2016.
He traveled in over 120 countries for his photographic projects. Most of these have appeared in numerous press publications and books. Touring exhibitions of his work have been presented throughout the world.
Salgado was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant in 1982, Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992; and the Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in 1993. He was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts at the Institut de France since April 2016.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 23, 2018
چقد عکاس بی نظیریه سالگادو.
August 6, 2018
Wish there were some captions for each photo.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews