Midnight salt horizons
Photographing the world’s largest salt flat after midnight, as storms drifted across the Altiplano. The mirror of the salar turned to ink, reflecting clouds that never quite touched the horizon.
Salar de Uyuni after dark feels lunar. The surface turns glassy just after the evening winds subside, leaving a mirrored pane that reflects every distant lightning strike. I camped beside the Land Cruiser with two spotters who watched the horizon for storms while I composed.
The exposures ranged from 45 seconds to three minutes, depending on the lightning frequency. I leaned on an old Graflex with a 90mm lens and kept the aperture around f/16 to maintain foreground focus. A soft grad ND over the sky held back the crackling highlights, giving the salt hexagons room to breathe in the frame.
The real surprise was how much tonal separation the salt retained once the moon set. The grains reflect enough ambient light that the salar glows against the sky. Developing in Rodinal at a 1:50 dilution brought out the grain structure without pushing the highlights too far.
Travel note: I taped a heating pad to the film holders to keep them above dew point. Without it, condensation forms instantly when pulling the dark slide. Sometimes the simplest hacks save an entire night’s work.