Photography didn’t run in Edward Burtynsky’s family. His parents were immigrants from Ukraine who came to Canada after W.W. II. They settled in St. Catharines, Ontario, on the banks of the Niagara River. Burtynsky was born there in 1955. His father, Peter, worked on the production line at the General Motors plant. In 1965, when Burtynsky was 11, a widowed neighbor sold her husband’s darkroom equipment and some Tri-X film to Peter. This purchase marked the beginning of Burtynsky’s career.
As a teenager, he studied black-and-white photography and learned how to print photographs, then began selling portraits for 75 cents apiece at the Ukrainian community center. With the money from the portraits, he traveled to the Canadian countryside to capture images of the vegetation. He was more interested in texture and color than in perfection.
In the mid-70s, Burtynsky enrolled in Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, where he received his B.A.A. in photography and media studies. He also worked after classes in factories and mines. His own experience and his father’s untimely death—from cancer caused by the toxic fumes of electrical-insulating oil—informed Burtynsky’s artistic focus.
“I came out of a blue-collar town, a G.M. town, and my father worked at G.M.,” he explained in a 2005 TED Talk, “so I was very familiar with that kind of industry.”
Burtynsky began taking hauntingly beautiful aerial photographs of remote areas affected by industrial activity. At first glance, the images appear abstract—splashed masses in the style of Jean Dubuffet, Cubist convergences, primal puzzles. You have to read the accompanying text to understand that these are pictures of oil spills in the Atlantic, copper mines in Arizona, dry-farming operations in Monegros, Spain.
In the early 80s, Burtynsky started shooting from higher up, first using platforms and mountains to gain height, then helicopters. More recently, he has pivoted to drones. His images speak to the environment and the destruction wrought by humankind.
Burtynsky’s photographs are now on view at London’s Saatchi Gallery, and as we honor Earth Day—this Monday—they feel more timely than ever. “These landscapes aren’t breaking news or necessarily even illegal,” he told Forbes in 2017. “I’ve been photographing that which has been intended by us; it’s not an accident.” —Elena Clavarino
“Burtynsky: Extraction/Abstraction” is on at the Saatchi Gallery, in London, until May 6
Elena Clavarino is a Senior Editor at air mail