Burtynsky is generally known for his large-format prints of man-made landscapes like quarries, factories or dams. He has also recently released his film, Manufactured Landscapes, and founded the environmental site WorldChanging.Org.

Being a general fan of the man, I couldn’t help but jump at the opportunity to see him speak when my recent trip to San Francisco happened to coincide with his presentation as part of the Long Now Foundation’s lecture series on long-term thinking. (( If you aren’t familiar with the Long Now, they’re a non-profit dedicated to promoting the concept of long-term thinking over the short-sighted instant-gratification which seems all too prevalent in our society these days. It’s a wonderfully nebulous goal for an organization, and I’m proud to be a card-carrying member. ))

As well as showing many of his fantastic photographs, Burtynsky was charged with looking into techniques for preserving images for 10,000 years. His recommendation was to use an obscure and little-used technique called Carbon Printing, which is done commercially by less than a dozen small shops worldwide. It’s particularly expensive, labour intensive, and difficult, but the final product is incredibly stable and resistant to degradation. The ink is literally crushed stone of different colours suspended by gelatin. The Magenta stone is only obtainable from a small mine in Germany, and the gelatin used by the process is so pure that the small shops employing the process need to band together to commission special small batches from gelatin manufacturers, because nobody makes anything with the purity needed on a regular basis.

Tags: Long Term Thinking