By John Geddes
Literary Review of Canada

In early 2008, the Globe and Mail published a series of aerial photographs of Alberta’s oilsands by Edward Burtynsky, who was by then internationally famous for his grandly scaled images of landscapes ravaged by humankind. Burtynsky was well aware that the beauty of his prints had previously raised unsettling questions about whether he was “trying to estheticize the devastation.” Not this time. As James King writes in his compelling biography, Burtynsky’s photos of the oilsands revealed “a grim, terrifying landscape of desecration.”

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