Kept Light» Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake Folios Slide Show

A. Cemal Ekin — Sat, 07 May 2011 03:56:02 +0000

You might have seen the individual folios in The Great Salt Lake Folios 1-8 collections. Holding and viewing the print is very satisfying, the tactile experience is part of “photography” I believe. Digital copies, although quite rich in color, lack the depth of the printed versions.

In an attempt to add a little more depth to the digital presentation, I have created a slide show set to music by Andreas Vollenweider. The movement and music add another layer of aesthetic dimension to photography. Choosing the right music and determining the correct length of the show are critical, and I hope I have made the right choices in both regards. It took me quite a while to settle on music that would reflect the varied visual styles of each folio as well as the visual material the Great Salt Lake offers.

There are introductory text before each folio starts. To make reading them easier, I am quoting them below.

Folio 1 | The Pastel Collection
From the air, the Great Salt Lake greets the eye with a range of hues that both amaze and delight. This collection presents the soft pastel palette in and around the waters of the lake.

Folio 2 | The Found Patterns Collection
Patterns created by nature challenge the best of painters both in visual structure and artistry. The human touch creates patterns as well. Sometimes it is a direct creation of patterns, and this is easy to identify; at other times it is the result of interfering with nature, which is harder to discern.

Folio 3 | The Glow Collection
Below me was a reddish orange view with white sprays on it; surface, depth, and bottom were hard to distinguish from each other. A mysterious glow emanated from the bottom and delineated shapes, of what I did not understand.

Folio 4 | The Fields of Color Collection
The Great Salt Lake ecosystem, with high salinity and other mineral deposits, creates a great range of hues through evaporation. The natural process of evaporation is then parceled out and controlled for production of specific minerals; and the result is the fields of color.

Folio 5 | The Halophiles Collection
The marshes around the Great Salt Lake give way to halophiles, plant forms that require high salinity environments. Mostly algae that are visible in clumps from the air, the plant life mixed with the colored waters of the lake create surfaces reminiscent of paintings.

Folio 6 | The Spiral Jetty Collection
The Spiral Jetty stood below us wound up as a spring full of energy and tension, possibly reflective of its creator. Robert Smithson created the monumental earthwork, or land art in 1970 using black basalt rock available on location.

Folio 7 | The Borders & Boundaries Collection
The ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake contains rich variety. They create borders and boundaries where one stops and the other begins. The photographs in this collection explore some of these interesting borders and boundaries.

Folio 8 | The Human Touch Collection
Compared to the orderly creations of nature through apparent chaotic processes, the human touch seems to create chaotic visuals through apparent orderly processes. At least it seems so from sufficiently high altitude.

View the slide show

Great Salt Lake Folio – 5

A. Cemal Ekin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 03:13:20 +0000

This is the final installment of the series on the Great Salt Lake. Vegetation around and in the Great Salt Lake does not impress the viewer with lush foliage or colorful flowers. However, the halophiles, those that require high salinity create interesting patterns against the colors of the lake. Mostly marshes around the periphery and algae in the water, the greenish clumps against the colorful water present painting-like views. This folio is available in the store for purchase.

Great Salt Lake – Folio 5 | The Halophiles Collection

Great Salt Lake – Folio 7

A. Cemal Ekin — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:42:57 +0000

I am getting close to finishing this project. This folio is about the limits of everything. Water meets land or air with a boundary, colors change creating another boundary, various shapes are formed or erased by virtue of their boundaries being there or becoming diffuse. The ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake is so diverse with different minerals in water, living organisms, land formation, evaporation, all working to create many boundaries that are clearly visible from the air. This collection is available in the store as well.

Great Salt Lake – Folio 7 | The Borders & Boundaries Collection

Great Salt Lake – Folio 2

A. Cemal Ekin — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 03:01:21 +0000

The Found Patterns Folio is the new addition to the Great Salt Lake series. With eight photographs, it presents the patterns created by nature and by human touch. The nature’s patterns with a palette of minerals and evaporation challenge the canvas of most painters both in structure and artistry. Human touch, on the other hand, creates direct patterns which are easy to identify or through interference with nature which are much harder to discern. Folio 3 | The Found Patterns Collection contains 8 photographs and is available in the store for the introductory price of $75.

Great Salt Lake – Folio 2 | The Found Patterns Collection

Great Salt Lake – Folio 3

A. Cemal Ekin — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:23:10 +0000

Looking down to the Great Salt Lake is a surreal experience, not only do the colors change unexpectedly but also the surface-depth-bottom relations present visual riddles. There I was in the helicopter, looking down at a reddish-orange, or orangeish-red water not being able to figure out what lied on the surface and where the bottom was. An unexpected glow seemed to come from beneath the surface delineating shapes, lines; of what I could not tell.

A new addition to the Great Salt Lake collection is the Folio 3 | The Glow Collection which includes 5 photographs. The folio is available in the store for purchase.

Great Salt Lake – Folio 3 | The Glow Collection