Our summer holiday in 2022 took us through southern France and Catalonia, and near Marseille and Montpellier the salt flats drew me like a magnet. The drone was in my luggage, and from a bird’s-eye view a play of colours and textures revealed itself.
Pink and white
The salt flats glowed in colours I hadn’t expected, from delicate pink to strong white, marked by sun and salt. From above the textures looked like a mosaic.
A riot of colour from the air
What began as a spontaneous idea ended in a riot of colour that shows the landscape in a completely new way. Here are the pictures.
Pink basins under clouds, pale salt mounds behind – summer 2022 in southern France.Left, a pink basin with a turquoise rim; right, beige fields with blue dykes.Pink, grey and ochre, the dykes at angles.Two red basins separated by a straight pale dyke.Striped red on the left, smooth red on the right.A dark dyke cuts the red diagonally in two.Four red basins, the dykes meeting at a pale cross.Pink and red around a pale cross of dykes.Pale salt crust at the edge of a deep red basin.Four orange basins, a pale spot on the dyke in the middle.Left, pink basins in a zigzag; right, a vertical orange band.Pale salt crust on cracked beige ground.Pink basins in a grid, clouds reflected in the haze.Cloud shadows drift across pink and red basins.Pink water, a narrow dyke and grey crust beside it.A pink basin beside a grey, cracked salt field.Large pink and orange basins in a grid, the sea beyond.Pink, ochre and dark blue by the sea – a white car on the dyke shows the scale.A grid of red, orange and pale pink – like a mosaic.Ochre basins with tyre tracks next to pink fields.Red basins in a grid, pale repairs along the dykes.Deep red and salmon in horizontal rows.Two pink basins separated by a diagonal dark dyke.Tracks cross between pink basins and grey crust.Left, a pink crossing with red spots; right, a grey basin.Orange and red, the dykes converging to a point.A white, winding island of salt in the orange basin.Left, an ochre grid; right, red with dark stripes – a riot of colour.
