Edward Burtynsky

All of my work comes out of a deep concern for human expansion into the landscape.

I can go into the wilderness and not see anyone for days and experience a kind of space that hasn't changed for tens of thousands of years. Having that experience was necessary to my perception of how photography can look at the changes humanity has brought about in the landscape. My work does become a kind of lament.

One thing that's consistent in all of my work is that these aren't accidents; they're all conscious landscapes. They're all things that we're doing and that we have done through our legal and social systems and structures of capitalism.

I think the environmental movement has failed in that it's used the stick too much; it's used the apocalyptic tone too much; it hasn't sold the positive aspects of being environmentally concerned and trying to pull us out.