SALT FLATS

At first light, predawn colors are reflected and distored by a rare rain puddle in Australia's highly saline Lake Eyre

By muray fredericks (The sydney, Australia-based phothographer's website is murrayfredericks.com.au. For a video version of this series, go to saltdoco.com), executive summary by darmansjah

Lake Eyre might be the bleakest, most featureless place on Earth-a flat, arid salt sink in Australia with only the horizon to define its 3,700 square miles. Yet I went there 16 times in eight years. Why? To create a series of photographs out of infinite space.

I’ve always been drawn to multiyear projects in remote locations, like the series I shot in Patagonia, Tasmania, and the Himalaya. After that I went back to art school and studied the history and language of my field. It was then that I decided to “remove” the landscape from landscape photography. Lake Eyre was the perfect canvas.

Each winter I would ride my bike to the dried hear of the lake and camp for five weeks, working every day in the harsh sun, wind, and cold. Somehow I never got lonely out there. It was only when I got back to civilization, and sat at a quite bar, that I felt truly alone.

All artists are interpreters of the world. This series is my attempt to translate the visual power of extreme desolation.

 Cleanly divided by the horizon line, this frame was shot half an hour after sunset. Seen here through my 8-by-10-inch view camera, the clear light of the desert blends right into its reflection on a bit of salty rainwater.

The black line is the edge of the lake, miles away from where I was standing. Working in such a space, I was keenly aware of variations in hue. In this shot, taken just after dusk, I was fixated on the subtle transition of orange to deep blue.