Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist who is well known for his large-format photographs of industrial landscapes, which depict mans effect on nature which is why I'm referencing him within my project. His father worked on a production line at a local General Motors plant, and Burtynsky also used to play by the Welland Canal while watching the ships pass through the locks, this could've been where his inspiration for capturing the man-made affects on nature in his later photographs.
His images are usually taken from a high vantage point, which thus allows him to photograph a large area which begins to highlight the scale of the problem to his viewers. He uses a shock technique to impact the viewers by making his photographs really large, to show how bad our affect is on nature. Burtynsky uses a large format camera and gets to a high vantage point (sometimes he uses a helicopter) to allow him to photograph the scenery from a far, meaning his photographs sometimes capture a huge area of ground. His works are very ore inspiring, and remind me of artists such as Gursky's repetition pieces. Most of Burtynsky's works include lots of repetition, but which are found natural unlike Gursky's digitally enhanced images, furthermore Burtynsky includes bright vibrant contrasting colours (shown below) which I could think about for my own photographs.
This image to the left is from his series titled 'Tailing', the colours are caused by the oxidation of the iron that is left behind in the process of separating nickel and other metals from the ore.
His project that I'm connecting to my work is titled 'Railcuts', in which he photographs blasted rock faces and direct physical contact to the natural land for railway lines to cut straight through scenery. I picked this series because how the railway cuts through the natural landscape reminds me of how the tire imprints cut through the grass, both sets of images give the viewer the feeling of how these man-made impacts shouldn't be there. Unlike his other works, this series isn't as colourful due to the type of man made impact it photographs, but I will try to use both techniques in my pieces, colour and how the railway cuts through the landscape.
You can see Burtynsky's technique of high elevation coming into its own within this set of works, without it the images would not have the same type on impact on the viewer.
His composition of the images is straight on, I feel he does this to increase the sense of how the railway is literally cutting through the mountain like a knife. Which adds to the idea of the affect humans are having on nature. Hopefully this affect of direct impact to nature will be seen in my photographs I come to capture of tire marks through grass.
