Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky was 11 years old when he saw a newspaper advert for cameras and dark room equipment.
“The seller was just three blocks away, so my dad said ‘Let’s take a look’,” Burtynsky, now 70, recalls.
“There were enlargers, lenses, three Minolta cameras and bulk loaders and cassettes and two 100ft (30 metre) rolls of film as well as all the chemicals and trays needed for a dark room.”
His father handed over C$25 for the lot, and the young Burtynsky got busy on his first assignment: photographing his much-loved dog, Tippy.
“What I learned from my very first roll of film was that it is important to take more than one photo, and move around a bit, be fluid,” says Burtynsky, who became fascinated with how the three dimensional translated into two dimensions.
Today he is one of the world’s most accomplished photographers, with a body of work spanning more than 40 years that is focused on humanity’s impact on the planet.