Roots for Juice

Sometimes its nice to photograph a particular place over and over again and other times it's nice to get some variety and photograph a different place. There's a few places that cause me to come back over and over again and that's when the scene changes over time and you can capture it differently every time. When I first started flying the drone over this year some of the rivers were filled with clear water. Later the water turned orange or red. And even later some of the streams dried up and white salt took its place. Willie and I came back here almost 2 months after we first started photographing it and I was inspired how it looked like tree roots searching for its water source. Can you see it? DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/5, 1/100 sec, ISO 100

Bigfoot Comes

One of the things that captured my eye in these salt ponds was the way the streams and rivers curved and bended. It sucks the eye in and provides great compositional elements to move the eye around the scene. But one thing I hadn't done was focus on some of the more hexagonal shapes. On this particular evening I waited for the sun to start glowing on the salt pond floor and then hunted some of the white salt hexagons that are common at salt flats. I loved the curving nature and the way it almost looks like a giant monsters foot in the salt. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/5, 1/60 sec, ISO 100

Love Prevails

As Willie and I flew the drones over these spots we started to see the environment change. Rivers dried out, salinity changed, aglae survived (or died) and plants started to pop out. This flight occurred almost 2 months after our first flight and I gravitated to the red and yellow colors of the vegetation. It reminds me a little of red hearts dotting the entire scene. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 100

Plant Maze

From the ground you'd just see a bunch of brush and some salt and mud. When you fly above and look down, though, shapes and patterns come out. It's one of my favorite parts of flying the drone; i can see patterns that didn't exist from on the ground. I gravitated to this particular spot because of the red and yellow brush that was growing after the water levels dropped. The salt formations created ridges that reminded me of a maze, where the treasure is a few green plants popping out of the ground. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 100

Gold Rush Pond

I've always loved photographing salt flats because of the hexagonal shapes the salt creates as it dries. Apparently these spots, though are called "salt ponds" because they're man made by a sea salt company who drains the bay to get at the salt below. From the ground you see the salt hexagons in a plane that disappears as you look forward. But from above, thanks to the drone, you can look directly down on the plane of salt, seeing its entire shape and patterns. I liked this particular spot because it had the most hexagonal shapes I could find in the area. Throw in a few dots of red vegetation and we had a pretty scene on our hands. The edges of the salt caught the golden setting sun, making what appears to be a field of gold waiting to be harvested. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 100