Edward Burtynsky On Manufactured Landscapes

Found this interview of Edward Burtynsky on you tube. Below the embedded video I have typed up some of what he said in the interview. 

Watch our video on acclaimed photographer Ed Burtynsksy talking about his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. For more information, visit http://www.asiatatler.com/hk

'So there is a great change upon the planet. I guess in someways... what I'm doing is bringing some awareness to the size of our footprint that's out there.'

'It wasn't like I went out as an environmentalist to indite industry or anything like that. It was never from that point of view.'

'An artist first, and the fact is that the environment is certainly at play but I'm not a card carrying environmentalist. I haven't strapped myself to any trees recently or anything like that.

'I think that the role myself as an artist can play, and by positioning the work as something to meditate upon, something to think about, something to have as an inflection point for a more interesting discussion about the human dimensions of how we engage with the planet as a species. And so if my work can help be that kind of Rorscharch test for, 'What's your interpretation of this thing? Where do you see it? Do you see it as a positive? Do you see it as a negative? How do you see that?'.

[The Roscharch Test comment is very interesting. I wonder if there is anything I can do?]

'And I think that encourages dialouge. That gets people to think and talk to eac hother verses throw stones at eachother. Which we've tried that for thirty years in the environmentalist movement and it hasn't got us very far.'

Me mentions using film 8x10, 4x5. Likes the medium but recently started doing some aerial photography and has found that digital is better for it. He wants equipment that gives him the flexibility to work large. All he is working towards is the 'originals', the original print to stand in front of the thing itself. Books, brochures, and catalogues are all surrogate to the work.  Wants you to experience photography at its finest.

He also talks about knowing what you want to become but not worrying about becoming it straight away. Sometimes you do other things and make a zig-zag course to what you are becoming. That is ok. It may even be better.