VN #082: Aerial Perspectives 5 ~ Logging & Mining Patterns
Published: July 27, 2025

 

Logging & Mining Patterns

Notice:

Due to a compelling urge to be out more in the countryside and in the mountains, I am taking a break from posting Visual Narratives. My calendar is overflowing with trips, events, adventures, and photographic explorations; I need more time not occupied by my computer.  I’ll be back in touch in late fall/early winter. Meanwhile, enjoy life and stay creative!

 

While photographing for my book Flyover: British Columbia’s Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, I sometimes found myself unexpectedly looking down on landscapes I never knew existed or which I had no plan to photograph.

For example, in my search for nature’s beauty, I never considered logging and mining viewscapes. When I did see them, I felt conflicting emotions. From an aesthetic perspective, I was excited to see and experience patterns, colours, and textures that were visually new to me.  From an environmental perspective, I was saddened and disturbed to see such massive interference with natural processes.

As a photo-journalist I photographed everything; I photographed the good, the bad, and the ugly in the most artistic way I could. It’s important that as many people as possible see the land we live in, and depend on, from as many perspectives as possible.

Patterns from clearcut logging practices ~ I

Patterns from clearcut logging practices ~ II

Patterns from open-pit mining practices.

Remnant patterns of a breached tailings pond ~ I

On August 4, 2014, the Mount Polley mine’s tailing pond experienced a dam breach that spilled approximately 25 billion litres of contaminated materials into Quesnel Lake and the Cariboo River, a source of drinking water and major spawning grounds for sockeye salmon. This image shows the bottom of the pond after the water had drained.

Remnant patterns of a breached tailings pond ~ II

Patterns from an active mine site.

 See you in November!

 

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