Salt (2009)

SALT is the story of award winning and internationally renowned photographer, Murray Fredericks on his annual solo pilgrimage to the heart of Lake Eyre in the remote north corner of South Australia. It is a piece on the personal journey of the artist, the creative process and the landscape itself. Alone on the most featureless landscape on earth, Murray's personal video diary captures the beauty of this bleak, empty and desolate environment - and provides the catalyst for an unexpected personal transformation. Told with subtlety, care and gentle dry humor, SALT is the story of what emanates from emptiness. By combining the breathtaking imagery of this surreal landscape with the hauntingly delicate sounds of Aajinta's "Harmonic Sphere's, it attempts to identify what lies beneath the surface of our reality and how 'something' can be produced from 'nothing'. SALT interweaves Murray's sublime pictures, with innovative time-lapse sequences, and illuminating and exposing video diary excerpts. Stripped back to its essentials, Murray's emotional and mind altering roller coaster ride is told through a fusion of personally reflective sound bytes and satellite phone conversations with his wife and family at home in Sydney. Totally isolated, with only the horizon line as his reference point, and thoughts as his only companion, Murray is forced to overcome the environmental elements of rain, mud plains, lightning, equipment failure and the ever intrusive salt. The resulting photographs are not just sublime pictures of a remote and surreal location - they are still points that punctuate a journey of the mind and spirit.