Unnatural Landscapes 5: Salt Flats

Unnatural Landscapes 5: Salt Flats — a video by Hamish Reid

Built from footage I took on a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah early Spring, 2024, and continuing a fascination I have with vehicle tracks carved into desert landscapes. In this case those tracks are hard to miss (I wanted to call this video NASCAR Lines, but I thought no one would get it), but I very nearly did miss them due to the terrible weather while I was in the area (it snowed on me at least once a day, and rained about half the time, and the wind was fierce). I need to go back out there and do it properly again. This is also so far the only Unnatural Landscapes to use a soundtrack that isn’t by Garry Manley — instead, it’s an old fave of mine, John Adams’s China Gates (performed by Nicolas Hodges), which I’ve wanted to use for something like this for a long time. And no, the clip’s not done in monochrome (as is obvious towards the end); the Flats are just like that when the skies are unbrokenly grey and rainy…