Edward Burtynsky Heads to the Gulf

Award-winning Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky stopped by Big Think yesterday before taking off this morning for the Gulf Coast, where he will try to wrap his head (and camera lens) around the devastation caused by BP. An artist who works with large format images, he’s an expert at taking photos of oil—from fields and refineries, to freeway interchanges and automobile plants. During the interview, Burtynsky talked a bit about the power of the still image. He tried to describe what our perception of the Gulf Coast disaster would be like if our only information came from words and descriptions, saying it would be nothing compared to the emotions evoked by an image of a bird smothered in oil or the slimy black waters.

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