Photographer Captures the Terrifying Things Humans Have Done to the Planet

Jun 24, 2025

Matt Growcoot

Aerial view showing a sharp boundary between desert landscape on the left and a large suburban neighborhood with houses, green lawns, and winding roads on the right; mountains visible in the distance. — Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community / Suburb, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, 2011 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

Photographer Edward Burtynsky has dedicated his life’s work to documenting the impact humans have on the planet, producing stunning photographs that evoke both awe and concern.

This week has marked the start of a career-spanning exhibit of Burtynsky’s work at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. The show titled The Great Acceleration reveals the photographer’s investigation into the human alteration of natural landscapes across the world.

“It’s technological expansion coupled with human expansion,” Burtynsky tells National Geographic. “My whole thing has been a meditation on how to represent this through the photograph.”

Curated by David Campany, creative director at ICP, the retrospective exhibition features seventy photographs, including many of Burtynsky’s landmark images, some of which have never previously been exhibited, along with three ultra high-resolution murals. The exhibition will also include a visual and narrative timeline of Burtynsky’s creative life. It is intentionally scheduled to extend through Climate Week NYC in September 2025.

A worker in white overalls stands on a ladder, sanding or painting the rusted, blue and orange hull of a large ship in dry dock. The ship towers above, showing its weathered surface and bold colors. — Shipyard #19, Qili Port, Zhejiang Province, China, 2005. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

A large, rusted ship hull sits on a muddy shore, surrounded by puddles. In the background, two other ships are grounded on the beach, against a hazy sky. — Shipbreaking #49, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2001. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

A busy roadside scene features numerous gas stations, fast food restaurants, and bright signs, including Exxon, McDonald’s, Shell, and Sunoco, with parked cars and traffic on intersecting streets. — Breezewood, Pennsylvania, USA, 2008 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

A group of construction workers wearing yellow vests work on an unfinished concrete bridge over a dirt road in a rural area, with open fields and a paved road extending into the distance. — Modjo-Hawassa Expressway #1, Alem Tena, Ethiopia, 2018 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

An elderly woman in a blue coat and black hat sits on a worn stone step outside a brick house, surrounded by piles of discarded electronic circuit boards and debris. — China Recycling #22, Portrait of A Woman In Blue Zeguo, Zhejiang Province, China, 2004 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

A group of workers, mostly women, operate ironing and pressing stations in a brightly lit garment factory with industrial equipment and pipes overhead. — Silver Spark Apparel #1, Hawassa Industrial Park, Awassa, Ethiopia, 2018 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

A large textile factory with rows of weaving machines; a worker in a yellow shirt operates one machine in the foreground under bright overhead lights, with many more workers and equipment visible in the background. — Manufacturing #7, Textile Mill, Xiaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, 2004 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

Aerial view of a sprawling freeway interchange in Los Angeles, surrounded by densely packed houses and buildings, with downtown skyscrapers and mountains visible in the distance under a hazy sky. — Highway #5, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2009 © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

The exhibition title, The Great Acceleration, is an established term used to describe the rapid rise of human impact on Earth according to a range of measures, among them population growth, water usage, transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, resource extraction, and food production, each of which Burtynsky has photographed the outward signs of at length and in great detail over the past 40 years.

From open pit mines across North America to oil derricks in Azerbaijan, from rice terraces in China to oil bunkering in Nigeria, Burtynsky has traveled across the world and back again as part of his restless and seemingly inexhaustible drive to discover the ways, both old and new, that organized human activity has transformed the natural world. Though already unified by both the precision and formal beauty that Burtynsky deploys to create each photograph, The Great Acceleration further underscores that, like their respective subjects, each project remains fundamentally interconnected.