Edited and curated by William A. Ewing, Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements provides an overview of Burtynsky's work across four decades, including 140 photographs of both iconic and previously unpublished images. It conceives of Burtynsky's oeuvre as five free-flowing sections that provide a sense of both his visual language and his exploration of the dilemmas at the heart of our globalized world. Each of the five sections is interleaved with a selection of texts from previous publications and articles on Burtynsky that work in concert with the photographs to provide a complete understanding of Burtynsky's view of the world.

With an introduction by William A. Ewing and an essay by Joshua Schuster, this book provides both an entirely new way of seeing Burtynsky's work.

Includes a print: Silver Lake Operations #16, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, 2007.