whew...what a day. yesterday, doug boutwell, jay reilly, and i headed out to the salton sea for a little photo trip. for those of you that aren't familiar with the salton sea, here's the skinny: the salton sea is basically a 376 square mile lake created by accident. back in 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt swelled the colorado river to the point that it breached a dike and began spilling out of control. this spill continued for 2 years leaving all the water in the lowest point, which happend to be a huge salt flat in the middle of the desert. the salton sea is the largest lake in california. the really fascinating part of it's history is that in the 20's it became a huge tourist destination and hot spot for big names like bob hope and frank sinatra. as time went on, the salinity of the water in the lake (which is now much saltier than the ocean) mixed with chemical runoff from neighboring agriculture areas began to make the water too toxic. by the 70's salton sea's prime had past and it began to fall into disrepair and ruin. ah ruin, a photographer's best friend :) trying to document the salton sea is almost a exercise in futility....pictures cannot truly capture the sheer grandness, weirdness, and smelliness of it all. but it sure is fun to try... here are a few from the day....you can also check out the whole slideshow by CLICKING HERE!

my poor shoes :( my john varvatos converse were an unfortunate sacrifice to the sludge of the lake. i was walking over what looked to be crusty salt flats when the ground gave way sinking me up to my knees in the nastiest oily, tar, muck you could imagine. to make matters worse, i then had to wash off in the foaming lake with fish carcasses everywhere. yummy :)

the sea has fluctuated many times over it's life so there are many places like this where whole areas are underwater. telephone poles leading out to sea...where else can you see that?!!?

this shot below is a stitched panorama of 12 different images giving a 180 degree view of bombay beach. it is pretty small here but you can CLICK HERE FOR A BIG ONE! be sure to scroll your browser bar to the right to take it all in :)

this is basically what the entire shoreline looks like on the lake. millions of floating, rotting, or crispy fish carcasses line the shore like sand. it is absolutely surreal...and the smell...oh the smell.

the shoreline also gets this wonderful foam lining it. so foaming water + fish carcasses = not the best place to wash your feet.

the one glimmer of hope surrounding the salton sea juts out from the desert like a sore technicolor thumb. leonard knight's 24 year folk art project salvation mountain is an astonishing site to behold. leonard has been building, painting and repainting his mountain for 24 years with nearly 100,000 gallons of paint! everything for his mountain has either been donated or found in the surrounding desert. the inside and outside of the mountain is all covered in biblical verses, messages of God's love, symbols, paths, patterns, and lots and lots of color. the sight of it is truly awe-inspiring...an amazing testament to one man's conviction.

leonard's cat.

God loves me...this i know :)

right outside salvation mountain are these ammunition bunkers that were used by the military.

an old silo.

while we were at salvation mountain, doug set up a bunch of his new schnazzy studio lights to take some fun portraits of us :) you should check out his blog for some amazing images of the chaos lit entirely by strobes.