The USC website didn’t include details of the event, such as whether it was a talk on techniques in photograph or his personal experiences. That was why it surprised me when the auditorium was filled with people when I arrived. I got in just early enough to sit at the first row under the big screen. The room soon became so packed that some people had to sit in the pathways while some were standing outside of the door.

Mr. Burtynsky was extremely humble despite his overwhelming popularity at USC. He started a slide show quickly without spending too much time on his personal biography, the usual “how I become great” speech. I appreciated that after working all day, driving an hour to get here, and spending a little over 10 minutes devouring a Chicken Caesar burrito for dinner.

My most memorable photos were the ones showing vast holes in the ground, the mine fields. They are so vast and deep that it reminded me of the picture of people building the Tower of Babel. Only this one is direct towards the center of the earth. For one of them, Mr. Burtynsky said it was 500 miles to the bottom using the tracks. My favorite part of the talk was when Mr. Burtynsky said that humans are usually in awe of nature. We see ourselves as dwarfs in the face of nature. Mine fields inversed the idea. Nature is not the fear. It is man’s needs that we are in awe of.

Humans opened up these holes for resources. They are permanently visible on the face of the earth. It doesn’t end here. The last part of the slide show showed photos of waste. The beautiful photo of a red river which is the poster picture of tonight’s event is in fact a river filled with waste with little traces of iron that are not worth extracting. ( So no, it is not a picture of a sunset over a river.)

This is not something we sweat off by blaming it on greedy corporations. We all benefit from and partake in this activity. I went home and, for the first time, seriously thought about what they called a more sustaneble life style.

Mr. Burtynsky also showed pictures of a developing China, including photos from Three Gorgeous Dam, to skylined Shanghai, industrialized factories as well as rural countrysides. These photos have become almost a cliché to me because I am Chinese. However what seems old and recycled to me may still be mind-blowing to American audiences. But I think I might scream if I see just one more photo of “The One Child Policy” in these exhibitions. And yes, I did see one in Mr. Burtynsky’s slide show. China remains a fascinating place to foreign photographers not just because it is an easy target for many stereotypes including sweat shops, human rights, environmental issues, etc. I overlooked an important budget issue. A photographer can come to this one country and cover all stages of the development of capitalism as I saw in this slide show.

The talk wasn’t all serious and all about environmental issues. There was an aesthetic side of it as well. Mr. Burtynsky said he tries to make photos that make people stop and wonder. He uses scale, perspective, and light to trigger “wonder”. I thought it was a great point for even amateur photographers.