Edward Burtynsky

  The Socar Oil Fields- Baku, Azerbaijan, 2006

The Discoverer Enterprise, a drill ship nearly three U.S. football fields long, floats on an oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on May 11, 2010.

 Breezewood, Pennsylvania, USA, 2004.

Densified Oil Drums -  Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 1997

 Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer who captures the extreme impact of industry on our landscape. He was initially interested in the effects of consumerism and consumption, but later probed deeper into the main source, oil. He began a series that looked at the 'life cycle of oil', from extraction, to the populations' dependance and obsession with it's resultant products, to the final stage after consumption. His large scale photographs strive to illustrate the mass scale on which we are transforming our natural environment. Burtynsky interestingly explained that his photographs are 'meant as metaphors to the dilema of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear.'....'Our dependance on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction.' I think Burtynsky demonstrates this dialogue very well as his photos are mesmerisingly beautiful yet the large scale of his images demands us to take notice. I find it fascinatingly devastating how we have managed to tailor the earth to suit our needs. It is however, refreshing to see landscapes that have been shaped purely by nature. 

In 2006, Jennifer Baichwal created a film titled 'Manufactured Landscapes'. It followed Burtynsky as he photographed the impacts of the China's industrial revolution on its landscape. His journey is also contextualised in relation to the impact of industry on the rest of the planet.

Left to Right: Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, 2005. Davis-Monthan AFB, Tuscon, Arizon, USA, 2006

Burtynsky' s images often appear as dynamic patterns, created by a mass of repeated elements.

 Silver Lake’s gold mining operations in Lake Lefroy, in western Australia. 2007

Burtynsky's photographs demonstrate a range of activities that manipulate the landscape, creating a series of manufactured reliefs and recesses. It would be interesting to translate this idea to the body, treating it like a landscape. Mini constructions would exist on the surface of the body, extending it's boundary, whilst recesses could be created by imprinting on the skin.