Remnants of a Dying Lake

Photo by Tom Clark at Rozel Point on the Great Salt Lake in Utah
Copyrighted Image - All Rights Reserved

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is drying up, partly because of climate warming but mostly because the waters out of the nearby Wasatch Mountains that have historically filled the lake, are being diverted for urban development. Many experts agree that we will likely never again see the water levels of the lake rise to where they were even a few years ago. The wooden pilings you see here are remnants of the oil drilling rigs that were dismantled and abandoned in the 80s. The oil was too thick and too hard to extract, too expensive to transport and refine. So they let it go and walked away, leaving only a few haunting pilings that echo the Stonehenge monoliths in England.


As recently as 2011 I took models here to photograph them in the water that on occasion still lapped at the feet of the wooden pilings. The water, which boasts an astonishing 27% salinity at the north end of the lake, is nearly a half mile away now; a shimmering mirage out on the horizon that will in time completely disappear. I find myself feeling sad about the loss of this extraordinary lake that has provided me with some of the most beautiful settings for my work over the past many years. But I'm also glad that I took my models out there to work with them when the water was still around; naked and free and in playful communion with the earth. It was a moment in time that I will never have again so I'm glad that I made hay while the sun was shining and the water still plentiful. Now the images will have a different flavor; themselves a remnant of my older work. I'm partial to water and it's a recurring theme throughout much of my imagery. But I'll have to find it elsewhere now...