Burtynsky was born in 1955 of Ukrainian heritage in Saint Catharines, Ontario. He received his BAA in Photography/ Media Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University in 1982, and in 1985 founded Toronto Image Works, a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory, digital imaging and new media computer training center catering to all levels of Toronto’s art community. He is still actively involved in the university community, and sits on the board of directors for The Image Centre.

Early exposure to the sites and images of the General Motors plant in his hometown helped to begin the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet, a look at the human systems we’ve imposed onto natural landscapes.

Colorado River Delta #2. Baja, Mexico 2011 – Edward Burtynsky

I chose this photographer because his aerial view photos of large landscapes were interesting and have good composition with all objects on the frame of the photo.

In the photo above, he used a drone to photograph the Colorado River Delta in Mexico. The photo shows a river that diverts in different directions along the water, with multiple fractured paths sprouting.

This phot in particular I thought looked beautiful because of the big landscape area that it captures, and curiously enough the river pathways when looked from afar in the air give the image of a dried tree with no leaves, and that’s impressive for something like this to take form in nature.

As stated before, Burtynsky aims to shows the impact that humans have on natural landscapes. In the image above he demonstrates the low presence of water in this vast, dry looking environment, most likely because of the threat of global warming caused by humans.

The techniques he used in this photograph is high angle perspective for the aerial view of the river, asymmetrical balance since the image is off-center, and color contrast between the landscape and the river.