Industrial scars, sprawling quarries, rivers stained by industry, and tire piles that resemble abstract sculptures—Edward Burtynsky captures these landscapes with an uncanny mix of precision and poetry. In Essential Elements, edited by William A. Ewing, his photographs don’t simply document; they confront. The book spans decades of work, gathering both well-known and previously unseen images, and invites the reader to face the uneasy beauty woven into the fabric of human impact.

Spanning over four decades, Burtynsky’s work in Essential Elements gathers both iconic images and unreleased photographs. What sets it apart is its form: instead of organizing his work by project (Oil, Water, Quarries, etc.), the book lets his images flow freely across themes. Each section pairs contrasting landscapes—riverbeds next to refineries, salt pans against industrial scars—making you acutely aware that beauty and deterioration are often inseparable partners.

One of the strongest threads through the collection is scale. From aerial vantage points to massive industrial settings, Burtynsky frames his shots so that the viewer becomes small. A photograph of a shipbreaking yard feels like a sprawling labyrinth; a stretch of desert mined for salt looks like rows of painter’s boxes. These vantage points are not just dramatic—they’re ethical. Burtynsky reminds us how deeply humanity has reshaped the Earth, and how much we have to reckon with what we take for granted.

Visually, Essential Elements is lush. The color palettes are surprisingly restrained—muted browns, soft grays, rust tones, occasional bursts of acid green or bright turquoise. Light isn’t about contrast so much as evenness: no dramatic dappled shadows, but rather a democratic wash across every element in the frame. These pictures ask you to look longer, to find details: a lone worker in a mine, the ribbon of a road slicing through badlands, textures that ripple across wrecked metal or cracked earth.

Burtynsky also treads—very deliberately—on moral ground. His images do not preach. They do not offer easy outrage or clean villains. Instead, they hold up a mirror and say: this is us. The landscapes may be damaged, but there’s urgency in remembering. A quiet insistence: seeing matters. Choosing what to amplify, what to photograph, what to preserve—all of these are creative acts. And in times when environments are undone by extraction and neglect, Essential Elements feels like a call to attention. To awareness. To care.