CBC Radio - As it Happens

Edward Burtynsky sees the world from a different vantage point than most of us — quite literally. The St. Catharines, Ont.-born photographer has spent decades taking bird's-eye-view shots of tailings ponds, sawmills, potash mines, and garbage dumps.

But long before those shots from the air, he was taking photographs at ground level in Toronto as a student at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, now Ryerson University. This week, Burtynsky gifted 142 of those early photographs to his alma mater.

It's the first instalment of his multi-year donation to Ryerson, where he began his career in the late 1970s.

He spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off about how a school assignment at Ryerson got him hooked on capturing how humans were bending nature to their needs. Here's part of their conversation.

Listen to the full segment here.