CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/22/2023

Salt of the Earth

How beautiful our planet looks from above, and how complex. Featured spreads are from Tom Hegen: Salt Works, collecting the noted German photographer’s aerial images of salt mining and sea salt production facilities around the world. The first spread shows areas of the saltworks in the Camargue Natural Park in Occitania, France, in 2018. These are among the first evaporation ponds in the Mediterranean, where sea salt was originally produced for preserving fish and meat. The second spread shows saltworks along the Saloum River Delta in Senegal, 2022. Here, solar evaporation turns the water into a salty brine, which crystallizes, sinks, and is collected by entire families that live in the surrounding villages. The third spread, photographed in 2022, shows Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, India, where salt has been made for the last 5000 years. The conditions here are incredibly harsh for the workers, many of whom travel across the country, come from the lowest caste, start working as children, and suffer from health problems like color-blindness after years of seasonal labor.