The Wonderfully Filthy

From one of the podcasts I listen to I just discovered Edward Burtynsky. He takes these amazing photographs of industrial landscapes - really scary post-apocalyptic images of oil refineries, chopped up cargo ships, etc. Take a few minutes to look through some of the images.

One of the side effects of working on X-Plane scenery for the last few years is that it has made me look a lot more closely at the world. Once you try to recreate the world on a computer (and watch your digital creation fall way, way short) you realize how much intricacy and detail every-day phenomena have.

So when I saw Burtynsky's photos I immediately thought "he sees the complexity and beauty* and sadness of industrial landscapes the same way we do!"

* Beauty? I am not suggesting that the SOCAR oil fields are beautiful, a particularly good idea, or something I want more of. But I think that there can be a poetry in the image - perhaps a poetry of despair.