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 slideshow 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 is 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.