Chapter

Tailings Pond #2, Wesselton Diamond Mine, Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, 2018

Graphically bold in elegant shades of grey, this picture of a tailings pond belies its actual topography. The aerial perspective, shot from the interior of a plane, has flattened the subject, a raised roadway located high above a mineral “lake.” The elevation of the site is not easy to read in this otherwise high-resolution photograph. Viewed from above, Burtynsky’s composition resembles that of an expressionist dandelion.

Although the artist’s intention is above all aesthetic, the documentary significance of his photographs cannot be ignored. He has successfully made a seductive image that proves his point: that by imbuing his industrial subjects with the qualities of a beautiful photograph—including sharp focus, infinite depth of field, high resolution, and grand scale—he also makes them historically valuable as sources of practical information. Part of his Water series, Tailings Pond #2, Wesselton Diamond Mine, Kimberley, North Cape, South Africa is a crisp illustration of a certain industrial procedure in a specific place and time. The same could be said of most works by the artist.

arial shot of flower like formations on the ground of dirt

Aside from its resemblance to a flower, nothing else about this image suggests that it is a photograph of an actual place. Together, the mineral colours and the irregular shapes of the tailings patterns give the illusion of volumetric texture—you might even say they throb, but these are planes, not volumes. After evaporation, the scene will be mostly monochromatic. Burtynsky’s lens reverses the optics between the elevated road and the level pond. The result is a thoroughly abstract picture that distances itself from representation, despite high fidelity and extreme detail.

In the past, Burtynsky used composition to effect defamiliarization. He exploits his subject’s native strangeness to slow the viewer’s assimilation of it. By shooting from above, and eliminating the horizon, he prevents the viewer from easily recognizing the picture as a landscape. Yet, it is as accurate a recording of a landscape as the medium allows. He explored the paradox again in later images, such as Coal Tailing #1, Ravensworth Mine, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia, 2022, another elegant composition with a schematic resemblance to flowers, also in grey-scale. The Australian mining landscape, however, is the opposite of flat and just as ambiguous as the flatness of the South African view.

Unlike cultural artifacts, industries and industrial procedures only have economics to protect them. A respect for history and heritage behooves us to maintain at least a visual record of industry. This is where Burtynsky re-joins the grand narrative arc specific to a medium we use to record the passage of time: whatever else they may be, his photographs are a core sample of the constantly receding industrial past seen from its present.