23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
Bands of Salt

Photographed from a small aircraft over the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, evaporation ponds and dikes divide the landscape into long vertical bands of pale salt, bare earth and coloured brine. Small piles of harvested salt repeat along the edges, broken by canals and tracks where machinery has passed. The scene turns a working industrial site into a stripped-down arrangement of lines and tones.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 08.2025
Date Uploaded: 11.2025
Photo Location: Utah, United States of America
Copyright: © Alex Visbal