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Monday, October 4, 2010

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is know for his landscape pictures dealing with the epidemic of globalized electronic waste and industrial landscape development. His images feature a mosaic of crushed metals and computer parts along with man made craters the size of a small city.

His images are compelling because they tell their own story. They address the questions we don't bother to ask and much of the time they reveal a situation in the world that otherwise is very much ignored by the western world. To think that because it is somehow cheaper to ship old electronic products to places like China to be recycled is shameful when you see that people are putting their health at risk just to salvage every last bit of our globalized economic waste.

Burtynsky's images are inspiring, they are composed to show the massive scale that these places consume and the contrast between the industrial landscape and the natural landscape he was capturing before.

A river of rust:


An ocean of tires:

Radio Documentary Photos In Progress

Click to enlarge!




Ed Kashi

I have chosen the artist Ed Kashi. There are certain elements I enjoy about his work. I enjoy his use of black and white photography. I believe it emphasizes the emotional intensity of the more than likely dramatic imagery. The content of his documentary photos are somewhat related and rightfully so. They consist of traumatic war zones and those who have been affected by war directly or dramatic stories of individuals going through some hard times.

I think for some photographers its a hard choice to decide whether its necessary to show reality as it is. For example Ed Kashi has multiple photos containing and clearly showing the death of an individual. Im glad he does this, it makes the photo that much more real. It brings reality into focus. Since we are typically shielded away from things as death we have a much harder time dealing with the concept or even the sight of a dead person. To me, he composes these images in a very good way, showing the reality of the situation being documented.