The eighty color photos in the book are a look backwards to Burtynsky's assignments from 1982 to 2024 and they all reflect his interest in the human control over nature. He was born and raised in Ontario and his earliest work featured food production in that state; the first seven photos were all taken there.
Throughout the book, a significant number of photos are aerial shots, from a plane and in recent years, he's been using drones. The world from above, not normally available to the public, gives Burtynski the opportunity to reveal to us just how ravaged by industry many parts of the world are. Tailing ponds (the waste from mining) were photographed in Canada, Australia and dry tailing in the Congo. Mine photos from Ontario, British Columbia, Utah, New Mexico, Russia and Italy shot from above, show just how vast some of these operations are. Pivot irrigation (watering circular agriculture) provides almost abstract shapes when seen from the air, taken in Arizona and Texas. Ship building, in China and breaking, in Bangladesh, is revealed in seven powerful photos. Away from the sky there are photos of vast manufacturing lines in China and of two indivuals recycling electronic waste.
The book's first few pages have an appreciation, by David Campany, of Burtynski's work in depicting the extraction of raw materials from the ground, making things from it and finally the dumping it. Much of his work is used in exhibitions with huge color prints; this photobook is an excellent permanent record of his work in revealing the hand of man on our world. I think it's worth saying that Steidl, the publishers of this book, have also several other well-produced titles of Burtnyski's photos.
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