Photographer Sebastião Salgado, known for his epic views of man’s inhumanity to man, and to the earth, has spent the past decade exploring places that have escaped the human touch. In a 2004 statement, he said, “I conceive this project as a potential path towards humanity's rediscovery of itself in nature. I have named it Genesis because, as far as possible, I want to return to the beginnings of our planet: to the air, water and fire that gave birth to life; to the animal species that have resisted domestication and are still 'wild;' to the remote tribes whose 'primitive' way of life is largely untouched; and to surviving examples of the earliest forms of human settlement and organisation.”

For the Genesis project, which is now an exhibition on a world tour, and a book (Taschen 2013), Salgado has visited 32 countries, since 2004, from the Kalahari Desert to the jungles of Indonesia, and biodiversity hot spots such as the Galápagos Islands and Madagascar. During the course of his travels, Salgado made regular posts to The Guardian. Here is his report from Venezuela, in September 2007:

Above: The Churun River mirrors the rain forest and the Auyantepui summit in the background. The river water is black because tree sap seeps through the sandy soil of the region.

"Venezuela is famous for its oil, but it has retained all its natural beauty. Inside the Amazon basin, there are these incredible untouched forests, waterfalls, peaks and tepuis (table-top mountains)—I kept expecting to come across dinosaurs roaming the valleys.

"I was there for two months, and spent much of that time climbing. Four days up a mountain, then a week camping and two days to come down - it wasn't as exhausting as it might have been, because the terrain is so beautiful. The Kukenan tepui is impossible to climb, however, because of all the erosion, so we could get there only by helicopter. But the erosion makes for the most beautiful valleys, and to see the rocks falling is really something. Beautiful, but deadly. We met few people, Indians with very little language. They are so isolated that they don't hear about politics or Chavez; they're just interested in survival and extracting what they need to get by from the forest.

"The Kukenan tepui is not one of the highest—it’s only 2,600m—but it is stunning. It was as if I had found Atlantica, a lost continent from the beginning of the planet."

Sebastião Salgado | Genesis, is on view at Peter Fetterman Gallery through November 30: Bergamot Station, 2525 N. Michigan Avenue, A1, Santa Monica, CA.

In Europe, it can be seen at Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland through  January 12, 2014, and La Maison Européenne de la Photographie(MEP), Paris, France through January 5, 2014. Information about dates and venues in 2014.