Salt

2009 • 28 minutes

About this movie

Every year photographer Murray Fredericks ventures to the middle of Lake Eyre, a desolate salt flat in South Australia. He pitches camp at its very core, with neither land nor water in sight. Fredericks's journey isn't a quest for high adventure or spiritual transcendence—this is clear whenever he casually picks up his satellite phone to chat with his family back home. Rather, he sets out to see—to really see—what happens in a place that might literally be the middle of nowhere. Between the long-distance quarrels with his wife and the hours of sheer boredom, Fredericks manages to find esoteric splendor with his camera. His catalog of stunning time-lapse cinematography and beautifully composed still photography is a kaleidoscopic array of brilliant color and subtle movement. Fredericks looks into the abyss and finds that, in the midst of nothingness, there is everything.

Ratings and reviews

As a teacher of photography, I absolutely love this film. When I teach landscape photography we study images of vast, wide open wilderness with so much detail and so much to look at. The photos of Fredericks capture the same vastness, but are the exact opposite of almost all landscape photography. While there is nothing to look at, there is so much to look at at the same time. Every time I reveal Fredricks' work to my students I see them get lost in wonder and amazement.

Nice story line beautiful moments captured in the salt lake nice journey of discovering himself wish he talk about how he got started in photography and the equipment he was shooting with great movie and would rent it again

Such an important environmentally documentary that everyone should see.