As North America’s largest manufacturer of granite headstones and memorials, Rock of Ages Corporation operates more than ten active quarries and five manufacturing facilities in Vermont and Quebec. Edward Burtynsky sought out these quarries in the 1990s in an attempt to better understand and visualize the landscapes from which the raw materials required for human construction and develop­ment were extracted. Making photographs that fully depict the scale of the industrial mining operations, Burtynsky’s pictures give the impression of tiny toy figures placed atop massive toy blocks.