Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist, known well for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. He has photographed from many locations around the world capturing industrial landscapes showing how this impacts nature and human existence. Beginning in the late 1970s, he started to capture natural landscapes from a formalist perspective showing unique compositions that were inspired by abstract expressionist paintings.
https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/edward-burtynsky
Burtynsky’s most famous photographs are landscape views, with some altered by the industry, for example mine tailings, quarries, or scrap piles. The ways he captures his photographs creates depth and unique structures, showing us from different unique points that give different perspectives.
Burtnysky’s work engages and brings you closer into the photo, as you are looking from unique perspectives from a far which gives you a more in depth and abstract view. The photo is quite unusual to the viewer at first, meaning we don’t see destruction and industrialisation from perspectives like this. This engages the viewer more because from wider and detailed angles, it allows them to see things differently so they can look at things differently during climate change. The photos communicate a strong message, linking to Anthropocene.
Instead of capturing modernist and interesting compositions, he began looking for subject matter which allowed him to make social, political, economical, and cultural statements with his work. He creates a series called Tilted Railcuts captured the physical trauma and destruction of land caused by contractions of rail roads. He then created a series called Homesteads, documenting precarious ways in which humans transform their natural surroundings when constructing neighbourhoods, towns
In response to Burtynsky’s work I want to capture from absract views showing the unique angles and formations that link to Anthropocene. I really like this style of photographs because they are a different styles to what we