Salt Pans. Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India

Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. A fine copy. Oblong folio (36 x 29 cm) 31 color photographs. Cloth; slipcase. Additional photograph in cloth chemise. DELUXE LIMITED EDITION, number 25 of 50 copies signed by Burtynsky with an original photograph, from an edition of 150 (three sets of 50 copies, each with one of three images) plus 15 artist's proofs. The additional image is that found of p. 4 of the book.

"The images in this book are not about the battles being fought on the ground. Rather, they examine this ancient method of providing one of the most basic elements of our diet; as primitive industry and as abstract two-dimensional human marks upon the landscape." - Edward Burtynsky. For this series, the photographer traveled to Gujarat, India, to make images of the Little Ranch of Kutch, a region that is home to more than 100,000 salt workers extracting around one million tons of salt from the floodwaters of the Arabian Sea each year. "Salt has been their main industry for the last four hundred years. Receding groundwater levels and declining market values will in time make this way of life obsolete and will cause the salt pans to disappear."

Taken from an aerial vantage point, some 500-800 feet about the ground, Burtynsky's images show a landscape of multi-colored interlocking rectangles, spanning across the delta: "Burtynsky's photographs have become increasingly abstract as a result of his topographical perspective and fascination with finding similarities in the industrialized landscape to painting. Salt Pans continues in this direction with Burtynsky exploring the subtle modulations of tone and compositional balance of the pans, and the calligraphic tracks from vehicles referencing scale and human activity.