Chapter 6 Waste Landscapes: Photographing the Course of Empire
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Abstract
This essay explores the way photography has been used in the late twentieth/twenty-first centuries as a documentary medium that shows us how our industrial and urban landscapes have changed and carries an implicit moral imperative as well. I focus on three photographers (Camilo José Vergara, Edward Burtynsky, and David T. Hanson) who represent three different approaches— historical, epic, and survey. The broader theoretical questions underlying the essay are two: Does specificity of place matter in the depiction of symbolic space? And—Can a photograph deny its own moral purpose and intention by virtue of its aesthetic power? Despite the ambiguities inherent in photography, I argue that the camera occupies a central place in contemporary culture by allowing us to answer key questions relevant to the problem of sustainable landscapes, questions about power and powerlessness.