Contents April 2013

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ProPhotoApril 2013: Volume 69 No. 3

A recommended publication of the

Editor/Technical Editor Paul Burrows, Hon.FAIPPpburrows@nextmedia.com.au

Art Director David Chew

Production Editor Edgar Kramer

Regular Contributors Andy Cross, Robyn Hills, Rosemary Ann Ogilvie, Bruce Usher, Alison Stieven-Taylor

Advertising Sales Lewis Preece

Advertising Traffic Diane Preecedpreece@nextmedia.com.au

Division General Manager Jim Preecejpreece@nextmedia.com.au

Production Manager Peter RymanCirculation Director Carole JonesGroup Editor Jez Ford

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Chief Executive Officer David GardinerCommercial Director Bruce Duncan

ProPhoto is published 10 times a year by nextmedia Pty Ltd, ACN 128 805 970. ©2013 All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher. ProPhoto is entirely produced in Australia, and is designed on an HP workstation xw6200 using Adobe InDesign. Printed by Webstar Sydney, distributed by Network Services. The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication, the content of any published images, or for the loss or damage to any item submitted for publication or review. Correspondence and manuscripts are welcome and books, apparatus and materials may be submitted for review. All material submitted is at the owner’s risk and, while every care will be taken nextmedia does not accept liability for loss or damage.

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© 2013. ISSN 1328-715XOnline at www.avhub.com.au

06I NEWS & NEW PRODUCTSIn the headlines this month is Nikon’s

compact camera with an ‘APS-C’ size sensor, Phase One’s new IQ2 series of capture backs, Canon’s tiny EOS 100D and much more. As always, we publish a calendar of the important imaging events happening locally and overseas over the next few months. (For the latest news from the imaging industry, visit www.avhub.com.au)

10I SUBSCRIBE AND SAVECan’t always find ProPhoto in your newsagent

or haven’t got time to look? If you subscribe, you’ll have the magazine delivered straight to your mailbox and right now you have the chance to win a fabulous home theatre system valued at over $9000.

22I ON TRIAL – Pentax K-5 IIIt was so good the first time around, Pentax

has decided to keep much of its enthusiast/semi-pro D-SLR unchanged, but there have been some important upgrades to keep the Mark II K-5 competitive.

28I IN PRACTICE – Portrait Of Coff ee Friends

Award-winning portrait photographer Robyn Hills continues her series of case studies, explaining her approaches and pro-cedures for completing commissioned work. In this issue, the challenge is to portrait the interactions of a group of friends.

34I BUSINESS MATTERS – A Testament To Testimonials

Research suggests that there are few more effective marketing tools than the recommendations of satisfied customers. Rosemary Ann Ogilvie tells how to make the most of the positive feedback from your clients.

38I ON TRIAL – My Myk SmartMyk

Video accessories for D-SLRs are now very big business, and the external microphone is at the top of most shopping lists. The Australian-designed SmartMyk is more than capable of holding its own against the better known international brands.

46I IN PRACTICE – Not Just A Pretty Face

It’s not illegal in Australia to photograph people candidly in a public space, but lawyer Sharon Givoni says there could still be legal ramifications for photo-graphers and anybody who publishes unauthorised images based on a range of other laws.

APRIL 2013 $7.95 NZ $9.90 www.avhub.com.au

Sebastião Salgado On Saving The Planet

Panasonic’s GH3 Challenges The

Video D-SLRsHow To Make The

Most Of Testimonials

Privacy Laws Versus Photographic Freedoms

NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE

PP Apr13_001 Cover.indd 1 4/12/2013 1:48:53 PM

18I PROFILE – Sebastião SalgadoAfter spending decades documenting the suffering of

people around the world, the renowned Brazilian photojournalist now wants to save the planet. A stunning new book highlights the fragility of the natural environment. Profile by Alison Stieven-Taylor.

Copyright Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images/nbpictures.

40I ON TRIAL – Panasonic Lumix GH3

Panasonic’s new Micro Four Thirds flagship is designed to go up against the heavy-hitters among the HDV D-SLRs so it offers exceptional video functionality in a more compact package.

This month’s front cover photograph features model Renee Slanksy who was photographed by Henryk Lobaczewski for the personalised jewellery maker Uberkate (visit www.uberkate.com.au). This image is reproduced with the permission of Uberkate’s owners and is covered by a model release, but the unauthorised publication of people’s photographs, even when taken in public spaces, is increasingly likely to attract legal ramifications under a variety of other laws. Lawyer Sharon Givoni outlines some case studies, starting on page 46.

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PROFILE

Sebastião Salgado is an icon to photographers around the world, although this incredibly unpretentious man – who has created some of the most extraordinary and important

documentary imagery of our time – would probably not identify with that label.

In March I had the enormous privilege of inter-viewing Salgado about his latest epic project, Genesis, which is both a book and touring exhibition. To me, Sebastião Salgado is like the Mick Jagger of document-ary photography, so the opportunity to speak to some-one whose work I admire enormously was both exciting and somewhat intimidating. But the deep passion he holds for the photographic medium, his generosity in sharing his knowledge and his obvious love of nature, quickly dispelled any sense of trepidation.

Genesis is an eight-year project that has taken Salgado to 32 countries in his search for the most “pristine locations left on earth”, and for the “people who are still living in harmony with nature”, as they have done for millennia.

There has been a hiatus of several years between the creation of this work and his last long-term project, Migrations, which was a collection of images spanning 40 countries – profound visual evidence of human-kind’s will to survive, but also of a cruelty beyond measure. He tells me that after the emotional weight of Migrations he required time out.

“I spent six years working with refugee and migrant populations in very tough situations. In Rwanda I saw so many incredibly violent things, brutality at a level you cannot imagine, such total violence. I started to become sick. I saw so many deaths that I started to die.” It is more than a decade

since Migrations was completed, but the tremor in his voice is still evident as he recalls experiences that have left him deeply affected.

Regenerating The RainforestSalgado says he and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, who is his partner in all aspects of his life, “…retired a little bit in our place in Brazil on land we had received from my parents. This big farm is where I was born and it had been more than 50 percent rainforest, but when I received what was left, it was less than half a per-

cent of rainforest. All my region had been destroyed in order to build the modern Brazil… destroyed as humanity has done everywhere on the planet.

“Lélia had an idea of replanting the rainforest that was here. So we started our environmental project to restore our forest not knowing that we were becoming environmental activists”.

They consulted a friend who was knowledgeable in forest restoration and he estimated that 2.5 million trees of more than 200 species would be required to revive the ecosystem that had existed previously.

For the last eight years the documentary photographer best known for revealing human su� ering has been recording the planet’s pristine places. He explains to Alison Stieven-Taylor why this mammoth project has revived his creative spirit and what he hopes his extraordinary images will achieve in terms of environmental awareness.

The Accident al EnvironmentalistSebastião Salgado

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PROFILE

Salgado says, “We are not rich people, so we began to raise money from many different places and we trans-formed this land into a national park”.

Over the next three years hundreds of thousands of trees started to grow, and the water came back, as did birds, mammals and other rainforest animals.

He tells me that the restoration of the rainforest is now almost complete with two million trees in the ground as at December last year.

“We now have more than 175 species of birds in our forest, and the jaguars are coming back. Our forest

in Brazil has become one of the biggest environmental projects in the country. We have also created an educational centre, Instituto Terra, and the biggest nursery for native plants of our region with a capacity to produce about one million seedlings a year of more than 100 different species. It has become an incredible project. And now our publisher Taschen is going to

offset the carbon it takes to produce our book so we can do even more… This project started as an accident…” he trails off and I can hear in his voice that he is still amazed by what they have achieved.

In Harmony With NatureAs Sebastião Salgado watched the rainforest recuperate, he says, “The life started to become stronger in us too. And I had an idea to go back to photography, but no more did I want to photograph the only animal I had focused on all my life – us.

“I had an idea to photograph the other animals and to photograph the landscape and, yes to photo-graph us, but us from the beginning when we lived in harmony with nature. We wanted to do a new presen-tation of the planet to show the people how incredible our planet is and so I spent eight years to tell this story.”

The logistics behind Genesis are almost as impressive as the final outcome, a feat Lélia describes as “a marathon”.

Salgado travelled by mule, boat, aircraft, hot-air balloon and truck, depending on locale. Many journeys had to be done on foot and timing was worked around small windows of good weather – summer in Antarctica and the Arctic, before the rains in Indonesia and the floods in Brazil. Salgado travelled

in two-month blocks, making four trips annually over the eight years.

He, Lélia and the team at Amazonas Images, the Salgado’s company, worked tirelessly researching to plan the scope of Genesis. Next came funding – a project of this scale is expensive – and many editorial partners and organisations were enlisted to support it. Finally, in 2004 Salgado, at the age of 60, was ready to make his first trip for Genesis. This was to the Galápagos Islands which Lélia says was “…a logical starting point for a look back at our planet’s earlier life”.

Unique ExperienceAfter each trip, Sebastião Salgado would return home to Paris with around 10,000 new images. Shooting on both film and digital, each image was assessed, without the aid of a computer – he doesn’t use one.

The end result is an extraordinary collection of more than 200 black and white photographs. This month Taschen is publishing Sebastião Salgado: Genesis and the exhibition of the same name has its world premiere in London at the Natural History Museum.

Lélia is once again the editor, curator and designer of the collection, which is divided into five sections – Planet South, which is self-explanatory; Sanctuaries including The Galápagos, Indonesia, Madagascar and Papua New Guinea; Africa; Northern Spaces and; Amazonia and Pantanal.

In thinking about the highlights of this eight-year opus, Salgado recalls the 850 kilometres trek he made from one of the holiest cities in northern Ethiopia, Lalibela, to the town of Gondar. Famous for its castles and religious architecture, Gondar is situated at 2300 metres above sea level.

“The walk took about two months through the mountains,” says Salgado. “It was a unique experience and I walked because there are no roads. These tribes live as they did in Old Testament times and produce everything they need – food, textiles even farming tools. After the first week of walking, I was very far from any towns and roads, and I was inspired to be part of this society that was completely living in another era, and in harmony with the land. They have very

LEFT: Steeple Jason Island is home to more than 500,000 couples of black-browed albatrosses (Thalas-sarche melanophris), the largest colony of albatrosses in the world. Falkland Islands, 2009. Copyright Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images/nbpictures.

“In Rwanda I saw so many incredibly violent things, brutality at a level you cannot imagine, such total violence. I started to become sick. I saw so many deaths that I started to die.”

TOP LEFT: Sebastião Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, pictured at their native plant nursery in Brazil. Photograph by Ricardo Beliel, copyright 2013.

The Accident al Environmentalist

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PROFILEsophisticated agricultural practices, and artisans and craftsmen are very important in this society. It is so beautiful, and walking there you understand how these lands, these rivers all ran to Egypt and made the glory of Egypt; it was incredible.”

He recalls how, at the end of a day’s walk when he was so tired he could no longer stand, someone took off “…my shoes to wash and cleanse my feet in the oldest symbolism of the humility of the Christians. You know it was incredible. For me, this was the most fabulous walk. You cannot imagine how beautiful it is really, the most pristine and beautiful place of the world”.

Frustration And Fulfilment There were, of course, some explorations that left him frustrated. He says he has no pictures of the Himalayas, but it was not for lack of trying.

“I did a walk along the border of Bhutan and China, more than 550 kilometres across very high mountains and it was raining, mon-soonal. Two months in the rain… that for me was very tough… it was an extremely long walk and I became very tired with no pictures. That was the most difficult for me in this sense, but I wanted to see the most pristine places on the planet and they are not easy

to access. If they were easy, we would have already destroyed them.”

Surprisingly, there were few interruptions to his many voyages. In Irian Jaya, Indonesia, he fell ill with malaria and had to cut short that trip. And deep in the forests of Papua New Guinea, Jacques Barthélemy, Salgado’s assistant, had to be evacuated after his leg became infected from a bee sting. But much of what was planned went ahead without too many problems. Lélia and their son Juliano, a filmmaker, joined Salgado where possible.

After eight years immersed in this project, I ask him how he feels now it is completed. He doesn’t hesitate, “I want to go again,” he laughs and it is immediately obvious that Genesis has indeed rejuvenated his soul.

“Because you see, for Genesis, I am finished, but I want to do a few things more. I’ll give you an example. I work a lot in the south of the planet and I want to complete that. I have a big wish to go to New Zealand… to the islands and to complete my set of pictures of the landscape in the south. I worked a lot for the Genesis project there, and I had worked

“We wanted to do a new presentation of the planet to show the people how incredible our planet is and so I spent eight years to tell this story.”

before in this area. But I want to go back to see the mountains. I want to walk on that ground again. I saw so many incredible things that I want to connect again with the planet, the environment. To me this is life.”

Connected To NatureSebastião Salgado says he’s always had a connection to nature.

“Absolutely always. I was born on this farm in Brazil. I tell you I was born in a paradise where I went for long walks in the forest and swam in the rivers with Caimans [large aquatic South American reptiles]. Look at my pictures. The best of my pictures are of the country-side, so country for me is very important. For Genesis I walked a lot, climbed a lot, in my search for pristine locations. What I did for myself in going to these mar-vellous places is the biggest gift a person can receive.”

Whereas Migrations was, in the photographer’s own words, “a very disturbing story”, Genesis is a celebration of the wonders of nature. But he cautions that “…it is also a warning, I hope, of all that we risk losing. I hope that the people who see Genesis will understand we have an incredible planet, a planet that we must respect and protect.

“We must also have respect for our species and for the other animal species. We destroy too much and give too much to the modern part of our society. If we want to continue to live here, we must restore order to what we have destroyed. Everything is alive on our planet. We must integrate again with our planet, or one day our planet will push us out completely, and we will disappear as a species. We are breaking this essential link that we have with nature.”

Earlier in our interview, Sebastião Salgado had told me he was not a rich man. Perhaps in the way the Western world views riches that may be true, but in the things that we should all hold dear – compassion, humanity and respect for ourselves, other creatures and Mother Earth – he is abundant.

Sebastião Salgado: Genesis. Published by Taschen, April 2013 and priced at $100.

The Sebastião Salgado: Genesis exhibition is on show at the Waterhouse Gallery in the Natural History Museum in London from 11 April until 8 September 2013. Entry fees apply and tickets can be booked online. Visit www.nhm.ac.uk

ABOVE: The Anavilhanas – the name given to around 350 forested islands in Brazil’s Rio Negro – form the world’s largest inland archipelago. Covering 1000 square kilometres of Amazonia, they start 80 kilometres north-west of Manaus and stretch some 400 kilometres up the Rio Negro as far as Barcelos. Brazil, 2009. Copyright Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images/nbpictures.

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