Silver Lake Operations #2, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia 2007 3/9
Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky defines 'epic' in images. He has made a name for himself observing human industry against natural beauty, touring China's Three Gorges Dam project, Italy's marble quarries, and more recently large-scale open pit copper mining operations in Western Australia.

Perfectly timed to surf the flurry of interest in epic Australian landscapes that Baz Luhrman's film is bound to generate, Burtynsky's photos show us a less clichéd antidote to cattle-wrangling and billycan-brewing.


Silver Lake Operations #1, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia 2007 3/10

Standing on the edge of colossal mining pits and peering over the edge in wide-angled wonder, Burtynsky's lens drinks in the superbly detailed blankets of rich colour regularly iconised in Antipodean watercolour. The pinks and whites of the salt lakes are speckled by red-brown soil mounds, and bisected by black roads leading to blacker pits.


Silver Lake Operations #10, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia 2007 2/6

Many of the shots were taken from the air, during low-level chopper flights. In doing so he had to use regular film rather than large format to accomodate a shake-reducing gyroscope. The details are still there, but at such a distance as to render them minute, removing reference points of scale and defamiliarising the landscape.


Jubilee Operations #1, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia 2007 3/6

Burtynsky comes from a background of conservation, chairing the directorial board of Worldchanging online sustainablity magazine. He was recently completed a tour around Asia in a documentary named Manufactured Landscapes, which illustrates the way in which he seeks to record humanity's impact on the environment. Photos of rubber tyre mountains and dam-ravaged landscapes cannot fail to move the observer. "It's like enjoying a scar on your leg," he says. "I'm not supposed to get pleasure out of it, but it's kind of fascinating."


Dampier Salt Ponds #1 2007 2/6

Australian Minescapes by Edward Burtynsky runs from 9 Jan to 7 Feb at Flowers East gallery.

See more of his work at www.edwardburtynsky.com

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