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Thread: Manufactured Landscapes

  1. #11

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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Really enjoyed that talk. He has a lot of credibility in that he is not a enviromental evangelist, he's honest with the wow factor he is feeling from the scale of industry but wants to bring across his personal message through his photography in a very honest way, not shoving the message in your face but rather letting you come to his conclusion through the impact of his images.

  2. #12

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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Quote Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings View Post
    By the way, I have never used a Linhof. In the film he oftentimes mounts it upside down. Is this to do falls with the lens and avoid the bed?
    Yes. I've done it, but of course all the controls are on the wrong side of the camera - the GG image is still upside down, thankfully.

  3. #13
    Whatever David A. Goldfarb's Avatar
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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Yes, you can mount the Linhof upside down for front fall, but not really to avoid getting the lens bed in the camera, since the angle of view is the same on top of the lens as it is on the bottom--for that you can tilt the bed. There's a tripod socket under the accessory shoe, which is easily removable. The back rotates 360 degrees, so it can be positioned normally, and the Tech V and later have focus knobs on both sides of the bed, so that works normally.

    If I'm shooting someplace where I'm very likely to want to do this and I'm not planning to shoot press camera style, then I put a quick release plate in place of the accessory shoe on top of the camera.

    I checked Netflix to see if the film was available on video--not yet, but I've added it to my queue in the meanwhile. Sounds interesting. Burtynsky's work is interesting to me, but I haven't had a chance to see any of it in person.

  4. #14
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    It has been out on DVD for a while (though that may be just in Canada looking at the amazon info now?) - our local Blockbuster actually has it, as does the local library system

    You can also buy it on amazon.ca for 29.00 (or pre-order the US edition from amazon.com)19.00
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  5. #15
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Quote Originally Posted by Ben R View Post
    Really enjoyed that talk. He has a lot of credibility in that he is not a enviromental evangelist
    well, he's not that quiet about the environmental problems and wanting a better world... I think he kept quiet on that front mainly to ensure he got good access to industrial sites over the years
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  6. #16

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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Some (if not all) of this video is on youtube.... interesting to watch. Burtynsky had an important retrospective some years back at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. These large images were truly stunning and packed far more punch "in the flesh" than in any other media. In his work, size certainly matters a great deal given the important details that would simply be lost in a small print.
    Last edited by Daniel Grenier; 17-Sep-2007 at 10:45.

  7. #17

    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    I still remember his show at MOPA (San Diego). His images were very impressive. Probably the best large colour prints I have ever seen. I think what he achieved with large format cameras is what led me back to large format. I highly recommend seeing his images at an exhibit; the impact is much greater than viewing a book or video.

    Ciao!

    Gordon Moat
    A G Studio

  8. #18
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    I think he kept quiet on that front mainly to ensure he got good access to industrial sites over the years
    Makes sense. You do what you have to do to get access.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  9. #19
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Quote Originally Posted by tim atherton View Post
    well, he's not that quiet about the environmental problems and wanting a better world... I think he kept quiet on that front mainly to ensure he got good access to industrial sites over the years
    i suspect that people often set off with didactic goals, and whether they realize it or not, start transforming their work into something else. you can begin by wanting to document the horrors of an oil spill, for example, only to find the artist in you taking over and finding unexpected beauty in the devastation.

    when i look at chris jordan's work, for example, it seems to me that there's a lot more going on than just telling everyone what they already know about consumerism and waste.

    stories like this abound in literature. writers have started novels with great rhetorical intentions, only to end up sympathizing with their villains and turning them into complex, believable, and even likeable characters. the inner artist often outguns the outer propagandist.

  10. #20
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Manufactured Landscapes

    Quote Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings View Post
    Makes sense. You do what you have to do to get access.
    A useful interview here

    http://walrusmagazine.ca/print/2007....il-extraction/


    i suspect that people often set off with didactic goals, and whether they realize it or not, start transforming their work into something else. you can begin by wanting to document the horrors of an oil spill, for example, only to find the artist in you taking over and finding unexpected beauty in the devastation.

    when i look at chris jordan's work, for example, it seems to me that there's a lot more going on than just telling everyone what they already know about consumerism and waste.

    stories like this abound in literature. writers have started novels with great rhetorical intentions, only to end up sympathizing with their villains and turning them into complex, believable, and even likeable characters. the inner artist often outguns the outer propagandist.
    One of the things with Burtynsky's work is that until pretty recently he seems to have been somewhat intentionally ambiguous - indeed coy - about his work - saying in the past he prefers to let viewers come to their own conclusions about it.

    He has (again, more recently) said this was in part to allow him to continue to have access

    Environmentalists have seen horror and destruction in his work - massive damn projects, the West's waste going to the third world, oil drilling and pipelines across pristine wilderness to give us our carbon fuel fix etc etc.

    And by the same token, industrialists, captains of industry and (some) politicians have looked at the same pictures with a proud flutter in their hearts and seen the achievement of progress, the triumph of industry and man over nature, the supremacy of market forces etc etc.

    It's only quite recently that I've heard Burtynsky being more op[en about his motives and feelings about what he depicts.

    Even now, I'm not quite sure if this was his (didactic) intention from the beginning or something that has grown more as the work progressed over the years.

    A couple of quotes from the article above

    First off, he pretty much sets out his agenda with a quote from Ronald Wright

    Our greatest experiment - civilization itself - will succeed only if it can live on nature’s terms, not man’s. To do this we must adopt principles in which the short term is trumped by the long; in which caution prevails over ingenuity; in which the absurd myth of endless growth is replaced by respect for natural limits; in which progress is steered by precautionary wisdom.
    - Ronald Wright


    "We have always taken from nature. This is normal, part of the human condition and, indeed, a fact of life for all life forms. What is different today is the speed and scale of human taking, and that the earth has never experienced this kind of cumulative impact. We don’t see it as extraordinary because it evolved incrementally, but the result is monumental. If my images appear surreal at times, it must be remembered that they depict our extractive world as it is. The trick - now, as on that initial exploration - is to provide photographic images that leave meaning open, an ambiguity necessary to gain access to sites, engender discussion, and steer clear of polemics and clichés.

    Thirty years after chasing down my subject, I sense that we are entering a new age. Never before has an entire generation been told in such convincing terms that the values and ambitions we assumed to be good and true, and that we fought long and hard to establish, are, in fact, killing us. Few voices in government or business have acceptable or timely solutions to reverse the deadly march of progress. By slowing the machinery of industry, governments risk creating massive unemployment, we are told, and I can accept this. But still, the evidence of humankind’s carbon footprint is growing daily. The biosphere is at a breaking point, and it will lash back in ways more deadly than the social and economic threats - crime and revolution, an even larger divide between rich and poor, etc. - that critics say will result from scaling back. We are being tested...

    ...Canadians have a choice: to elect leaders who have a vision of how to make sustainable development real or to carry on with our business and history as usual. What we have going for us is general wellbeing, a decent heart, and educated people sitting on a very large chest of gold. If resources are what we have, and sustainable development is what we want, then why not get on with a new age: extracting what we need without destroying the places we take it from..."
    more at above
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

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