Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky, OC (born February 22, 1955) is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large-format photographs of industrial landscapes His work is housed in more than 50 museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Burtynsky was born in St Catharines, Ontario His parents had immigrated to Canada in 1951 from Ukraine and his father found work on the production line at the local General Motors plant Burtynsky recalls playing by the Welland Canal and watching ships pass through the locks When he was 11, his father purchased a darkroom, including cameras and instruction manuals, from a widow whose late husband practiced amateur photography With his father, Burtynsky learned how to make black and white prints and together with his older sister established a small business taking portraits at the local Ukrainian center In the early 1970s, Burtynsky found work in printing and he started night classes in photography, later enrolling at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute

From the mid-1970s to early 1980s, Burtynsky formally studied graphic arts and photography He obtained a diploma in graphic arts from Niagara College in Welland, Ontario, in 1976, and a BAA in Photographic Arts (Media Studies Program) from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, Ontario, in 1982

Burtynsky's most famous photographs are sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict He has made several excursions to China to photograph that country's industrial emergence, and construction of one of the world's largest engineering projects, the Three Gorges Dam

His early influences include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins, whose prints he saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the early 1980s

Most of Burtynsky's exhibited photography (pre 2007) was taken with a large format, field camera, on large 4×5-inch sheet film and developed into high-resolution, large-dimension prints of various sizes and editions ranging from 18 × 22 inches to 60 × 80 inches He often positions himself at high-vantage points over the landscape using elevated platforms, the natural topography, and more currently helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft Burtynsky describes the act of taking a photograph in terms of "The Contemplated Moment", evoking and in contrast to, "The Decisive Moment" of Henri Cartier-Bresson In 2007 he began using a high-resolution digital camera

Photographic series:
1983–1985 Breaking Ground: Mines, Railcuts and Homesteads, Canada, USA
1991–1992 Vermont Quarries, USA
1997–1999 Urban Mines: Metal Recycling, Canada Tire Piles, USA
1993–Carrara Quarries, Italy
1995–1996 Tailings, Canada
1999-2010 Oil Canada, China, Azerbaijan, USA
2000–Makrana Quarries, India
2000–2001 Shipbreaking, Bangladesh
2004–2006 China
2006–Iberia Quarries, Portugal
2007–Australian Mines, Western Australia
2009–2013 Water Canada, USA, Mexico, Europe, Asia, Iceland, India

Other projects:
Burtynsky chaired the board of directors of the online sustainability magazine Worldchanging until May 2010, shortly before it ceased operating He sits on the board of CONTACT, Toronto's international festival of photography

Toronto Image Works:
In 1985 Burtynsky established Toronto Image Works, a facility that offers darkroom rentals, equipment use and presently offers digital new-media courses In 1986 the facility opened a gallery space which displays the work of local and international artists He is currently its president

Manufactured Landscapes:
In 2006, Burtynsky was the subject of the documentary film, Manufactured Landscapes, that was shown at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition

The Long Now Foundation:
In July 2008 Burtynsky delivered a seminar for the Long Now Foundation entitled "The 10,000 year Gallery" The foundation promotes very long-term thinking and is managing various projects including the Clock of the Long Now, which is a clock designed to run for 10,000 years Burtynsky was invited by clock designer Danny Hillis to contribute to the Long Now project, and Burtynsky proposed a gallery to accompany the clock In his seminar, he suggested that a gallery of photographs which captured the essence of their time, like the cave paintings at Lascaux, could be curated annually and then taken down and stored He outlined his research into a carbon-transfer process for printing photographs that would use inert stone pigments suspended in a hardened gelatine colloid and printed onto thick watercolour paper He believes that these photographs would persist over the 10,000 year time-frame when stored away from moisture

Watermark:
Burtynsky and Jennifer Baichwal, who directed the 2006 documentary Manufactured Landscapes, are co-directors of the 2013 documentary film, Watermark The film is part of his five-year project, Water, focusing on the way water is used and managed

Awards:
2006: Officer of the Order of Canada[citation needed]
Honorary doctorate in Laws, from Mt Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada[citation needed]
Honorary doctorate in Laws, from Queen's University, Kingston[citation needed]
Honorary doctorate in Fine Arts in Photography Study from Ryerson University, Toronto[citation needed]
Honorary doctorate in Fine Arts, from Montserrat College of Art, Boston[citation needed]
2005: TED Prize
Member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
2013: Geological Society of America President's Medal
2013: Rogers Best Canadian Film Award at the 2013 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Watermark (2013)
2014: Best Feature Length Documentary at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards for Watermark (2013)
http://hisour.com/artist/edward-burtynsky/