Lake Eyre abstract…
With the great inland sea now at 80-85% surface coverage yet only 40-45% volume the transformation is immense. Almost all the salt plains are now submerged and the lake has taken on a completely different complexion to normal. Here in Madigan Gulf the vast shallow waters still exhibit signs of the textures of the once seemingly endless salt pan.
‘ Lake Eyre textures – EOS 5DII, July 2010 © ’
Tony Middleton - Inspired Landscape Photography 
Have you been for a trip out there Tony ?
affirmative merv-man
Good one mate, did you fly with Justin from PI heli’s?
Bloody impressive sight, glad that I got to do it
Yeah I went with my locals – lol. Nice bloke and may catch up for a beer over summer sometime…
Great capture mate…gotta get out there soon myself!
thanks Mark – enjoy 🙂
Must be an amazing & somewhat rare sight Tony!
yeah it’s pretty vast and when you think more about the mechanisms in place for it to occur – that’s the more impressive factor I think.
cheers,
Oh that’s brilliant, I love abstracts like this I just always forget to shoot them myself. Lake Eyre is a must see destination for me now.
hey Flemming,
It’s pretty cool, but to be honest there are a lot of things/places that I find more interesting than the lake itself. It’s more the breadth and the event of what it takes to get full that is impressive IMO. 🙂
Having been out that way once myself i have to agree Tony. Unless you can get in a heli or a plane it’s a bit of an anticlimax when you get there.
The events that lead to the lake and surrounds filling are far more interesting than the lake itself.
I suppose, but Murray Fredericks amazing work is from Lake Eyre isn’t it ? I am aware it’s ‘nothing’ but I like ‘nothing’, it just requires extraordinary clouds and light to shine so I may have to camp out there as well 🙂
haha – yes it is…. but it’s all under water now flembot… and there are no longer any/very few salt pans.
The lake covers and area of about 180km x 80km or something simiilarish….
Ahhh bugger…then I have to dry the whole bloody big thing before I can attempt some ‘into the nothing’ shots at Lake Eyre, oh so much work to do for the sake of art but it’s worth it!
Right, anyone wants a heck of a lot of salt water? Salt is actually in really high value!
lol – plenty of other salt pans about… Besides… whilst away I was thinking about the concept of wide open spaces and the most obvious one is from a boat in the middle of an ocean…
To flood it needs big rain event up in Qld’s channel country to the N-NW-WNW and it takes 3-4months for that water to travel 1000km’s over ancient dry arid river beds and floodplains to end up at the lake, ~15m below sea level.
fascinating shot Tony, glad you got to experience it in this state. from (kind of) getting to know you through the blog world I reckon this would be high up on your list of things to have seen! 🙂
it’s been very interesting to watch it unfold this year with all of the weather systems, and with the rain seeming to continue in the right regions, do you think it will expand much further?
but it is mind boggling isn’t it to image flood water, that you associate to rapid moving etc, but that it takes literally months to travel down an entire riverbed to it’s destination.
it appears from a distance that the Murry has been getting some nice inflow too in the last couple of months. still a long way to go i’m sure to bring it back, but good to hear all the same
hey stephen,
It was something that I had considered doing/seeing on the previous 2 flood events but I will admit that it was not on a list… and to be honest I don’t think I really have lists. I knew it would happen again and that my opportunity would arise to see it. Some kinda hippy-dreaming shit there…
Anyway, it is a pretty cool sequence of natural events and the earth sciences in play so I like it and enjoy seeing,feeling,smelling etc for myself. trekking through a km or so in foot deep mud in the dark from a shoot one particular night made for a good story/laugh… btw that mud stinks for days too !
Thanks as always for your input mate 🙂
great image Tone. Good to hear your thoughts on Lake Eyre.
cheers mate – good to read you found it interesting. 🙂
Great image Tony, nice and simple.
This looks like it was taken from the Ponsford Stand.
Great shot, puts the surface at Etihad to shame, Collo needs to go have a look.
I think they will be forced to get it right for next season onwards Tom.
Glad you like the shot mate !
on first glance i struggle with pin-pointing the scale on this one. could be footprints, some cracks, a road, clouds. but even then, the scale of the cracks dont seem to match up with the road. blocking out the smudgy clouds, or window’s influence at the top of the frame would further enhance this, i feel. as you pointed out, being on the ground here would kinda suck…your shoes off!
hey Cain,
That’s the beauty of abstract scenes hey… To give you a better idea of what is going on in this image in reality; It is shot from about 500ft up over what would have been a vast salt and mud pan, that now is completely submerged by a couple of feet of water – so the top of frame is cloud reflections on the water, not window defraction/reflection. The small trail through the scene may have been from wandering stock,camels or wild brumbies. As for those unusual shapes… well I’m guessing they have been slightly raised areas on the pan then moulded from years of wind erosion – now submerged. I’d estimate they would have perhaps 10-15ft across. Hope that helps.
cheers 🙂
wonderful!