Manufactured Landscapes

As a part of my photography class last week we previewed scenes from the film Manufactured Landscapes which documents the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky. To quickly summarize, Burtynsky's images of human driven impact on the land via processes like mining, chemical waste spills, landfills and recycling yards are both beautiful and tragic. The film goes on to illustrate the heavy cost that China's environment and its people are paying for the countries rapid expansion. The most impactful part of the film in my opinion is that it forces you to consider a products entire life cycle from the materials it was sourced from, to the worker in China that assembled it, to the shipping yard and the oil needed to transport it to the consumer, and finally it's place in a landfill or worse. Along those lines our assignment for the week was to capture images locally that demonstrate man's impact on the landscape. Unfortunately I didn't need drive deep into desert to complete the assignment.

 

There were dozens of tires thrown by the side of the road. Rather than pay a few dollars to have the things disposed of, apparently it's far more convenient to make it someone's else problem.

  

 In this bush there was an old filing cabinet, bottles of beer and soft drinks, parts from a microwave and other items that had been broken apart to a point where it was hard to identify.

  

  

Yes, there was even a couch.

  

Glass, glass everywhere

And the rest... well. All I can think is that cats do a far better job of burying their waste.

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

A finally there was this odd source of water in the middle of nowhere.