Natron patron

British-born American-based photographer Nick Brandt points his lens solely at the wild animals and places of Africa in an attempt to capture their beauty before they are lost at our hands. But at Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, the destruction is caused not by humans, but by nature itself. The water can reach 141°F (60°C), but it is the remarkable alkalinity which causes animals immersed in it to become calcified after death. As its name suggests, the lake is full of natron, the naturally occurring salt that the Ancient Egyptians used to dehydrate their mummies. Brandt discovered perfectly preserved birds and bats on the shoreline and explains, "I could not help but photograph them. 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." He has positioned and photographed the unfortunate animals, including a dove, a sea eagle, and the flamingo (IMAGE ABOVE) that made a bad decision to nest on a salt island in the lake.

Posted with Blogsy