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These grim and spirit-like bird were found by photogr apher Nick Brandt on the shores of Lake Natron in Tanzania. They have been dried and calcified by the lake’s waters, which are extraordinarily hot, alkaline, mineral-laden and deadly. The sunlight reflecting off of the lake caused most of these birds to crash into the water, after which it salted and petrified them. Brandt posed the unlucky birds and photographed them while traveling through Africa to document its disappearing wildlife. |
According to Brandt:
I unexpectedly found the creatures – all manner of birds and bats – washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania. No-one knows for certain exactly how they die, but it appears that the extreme reflective nature of the lake’s surface confuses them, and like birds crashing into plate glass windows, they crash into the lake. The water has an extremely high soda and salt content, so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds. The soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly preserved, as they dry.
I took these creatures as I found them on the shoreline, and then placed them in ‘living’ positions, bringing them back to ‘life’, as it were. Reanimated, alive again in death.
more Nick Brandt HERE
