Edward Burtynsky

Happy Victoria Day!

In tech class this past week we have started our photography unit. To commence it, we watched a documentary on the famous photographer Edward Burtynsky.

The film Manufactured Landscapes, is a documentary of how Burtynsky photographs his main subjects, which are manufactured landscapes. I found the film very interesting because it demonstrates the effort he puts in to taking these magnificent photos. It gives us a very real idea of where all of the materials we use come from, and the damage it does on not only the environment, but peoples' living conditions in other countries such as China. Although it was a bit slow at times, especially in the beginning, I can tell that it is purposeful in order to catch our attention again, and to show the scale of such industries. At the start of the film, there is a long stretch of video for several minutes of the camera travelling through a factory that makes irons. As mentioned before, it shows us how large the factory is, and how many people there are. The other thing that impacted the film hugely were the sounds in the background. They were very subtle, but they were enough to make someone feel inspired, scared, disgusted, etc. If the sounds were absent, there would be something missing from the film.

I've researched his work, and the picture on the left is the one I recognize the most. At first I thought it was just another beautiful picture. Once I read about it I was shocked; I thought that this disgustingly tainted water was from somewhere else in the world, but it is from Sudbury, Ontario in 1996.

I like how Burtynsky takes all of the environmental problems we fight so hard to push to the back of our minds and shoves them in our faces once again so we cannot help but acknowledge them.

The second picture os of the massive oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico a year ago. Looking at the images, it's easy to imagine just how huge these landscapes are. Without the pictures acting as visual guides, if we had only heard about the oil spill, the effect wouldn't be the same.

All in all, I really like Burtynsky's work and the impact it makes.