Postcard | Dallol Salt Flats, Ethiopia

April 11, 2022 in Travel Photography

Being awestruck usually coincides with a place. I think of the desolate stretch of the Thar Desert leading from India into Pakistan. I think about the peak of Mt. Everest breaking through the cloud sea as if it was an iceberg frozen stoically in the distance. I think about Lake Tahoe’s basin and the turquoise waters of the inland, alpine sea. I think about the calm Pacific, rising and falling along the shores of Japan’s Taketomi Island. I can now add the salt flats of Dallol to the list of places that truly stir me.

The Afar region of northeast Ethiopia is as inhospitable as I can imagine. Dust storms. Acid pools. Extreme heat. It’s no wonder that the life expectancy for those who live here is a mere 45 years. Despite the conditions that define the region, I remain in awe of the vast expanse.

Momentarily, I thought about how to photograph the great expanse to show the magnitude of emptiness found there. I realized, though, that any attempt would be insufficient. The landscape is the epitome of negative space, where emptiness itself is the awe-inspiring subject.

Wish You Were Here,

…

Postcard | Afar, Ethiopia

November 12, 2020 in Travel Photography

There was a clear separation in the groups. Us, the travelers, guides, and hired drivers slathering chocolate spread on thin slices of white bread after an early morning hike back to basecamp. Them, the gatekeepers of Erta Ale's roads and trails - Afar tribesmen gathered in clusters just meters away, self-segregated by an apparent social hierarchy.

Like so many times before, the dilemma of experiential travel presented itself. I questioned my place, our place as tourists. I questioned my intentions as a portrait photographer and the appropriateness of making images as a guest in someone else’s space, their home, their place of work. I also questioned why I was in Ethiopia in the first place. I didn’t really have an answer to either question.

The gentlemen enjoyed their conversation nearby. Even in the early morning, their vocal tones were jovial. I wanted to make photographs of the men who paid no mind to the tourists on their land. I wanted to be respectful, to not intrude. I wanted to continue to reinforce my belief that we should all be givers instead of takers. I wanted to avoid photographing solely for personal interests as I so often do. I wanted to interact with the tribesman, experience Ethiopia (as much as a short-term tourist can) in ways that weren’t strictly observational. I was conflicted.

I had some spare Instax film with me and knew that it would only take a few minutes to make a portrait for anyone who wanted one. The small photos could easily be used for Ethiopia’s mandatory national identification cards or, just to have. Offering Polaroids was, at the moment, the only way I could justify my decision to approach the Afar men standing nearby. Other than a smile, it was the only thing I had to offer.

I noticed several elders puffing heartily on cigarettes. Smokers tend to gravitate towards one another. Here, along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, I hoped that this generalization held true. I wrangled a smoke from a crumpled pack of American Spirits crammed in the front pouch of my rucksack. I let the stick dangle from the corner of my mouth and decided to approach the men.

I asked for a match. To my delight, I was greeted with smiles and brought into the fringes of the circle, into the fold. There were matches for me as well as a language barrier, but our relaxed dispositions and curiosity for each other served as the real introduction.

We had a smoke or two and a motion-filled conversation about the state of my tennis shoes. In my periphery, I noticed that a translator from my tour group had shuffled over. He began translating without being asked - a gesture for which I was grateful. With his help, I related that I was able to make a portrait for anyone who wanted one.

At first, there were no takers. But after a bit of coaxing by his fellow tribesmen, an elder stepped forward. We moved to the side and the gentleman stood stoically for his portrait to be taken. Minutes later, he held the small sheet of film and others pressed close to see it. Soon, the rest of the men arranged themselves into a small line, each ready to pose.

After photographing the tribal elders and the more eager members of the group, I mentioned (through translation) that I had few film sheets left. A timid teen stepped forward and then, almost immediately, popped off into a lean-to shelter covered by a tattered tarp nearby. He returned donning a piece of dusty fabric that would serve as his makeshift necktie. I felt honored to photograph the lad and appreciated the thought he put into his time, albeit a short one, behind the camera.

After the experience, I am left wondering what place, if any, a photographer has in situations like this. I wonder if my disposition lets others know that I mean no them harm. I question my intentions and wonder if interactions like this one in northern Ethiopia leave the world a better place or erode it. I don’t have answers to these questions. Regardless, I was honored to spend a few morning moments with the men of Afar.

More From the Road

Salt Farming In Afar, Ethiopia

August 29, 2020 in Documentary

Much of my life before moving to Tokyo was spent in the rural areas of the American South. Though not the son of a farmer, I grew up next to fields of tobacco, corn, and grazing cattle. As a child, I loved watching hay bails being loaded onto flatbed trucks donning “farm use only” license tags, and seeing overall-clad farmers walking their fertile land. I saw farmers and their farmhands walk into the fields as the sun rose and shut off the barn lights well after dark.

At the time, I didn’t realize that these scenes served as my introduction to the concept of industry. While I wasn’t yet aware of stock futures or agricultural regulation, the scenes helped me comprehend the incalculable amount of sweat it takes to carve out a life as a farmer.

Five years ago I photographed a salt farm in Sinan County, South Korea for a short series titled Southern Salt. This was my first time seeing salt cultivation. I was intrigued by the massive salt flats made thick black tarps and levees to separate the individual salination pools. The sun beat down and the farmers worked furiously to cultivate and collect the salt. Watching the Korean salt farmers took me back to my childhood and reminded me of the American laborers who, as I know now, worked so damn hard for so little.

Early this year, I had another chance encounter with salt farming. Far into the Danakil region of northern Ethiopia, I witnessed a way of farming salt that was much older and laborious than the one I witnessed in South Korea.

Ethiopian salt farmer binds a stack of ten salt slabs.

These Ethiopian salt “mines” form part of the Danakil Depression, a 60,000 square meter mineral deposit that reaches up to 100 meters below sea level. It is here in the Danakil that the Afar tribe has mined the salt that was left as an unexpected gift by ancient Red Sea floods. For centuries, this stretch of baked earth gave a trade to the Afar people and established the Ethiopian salt industry.

To say that salt extraction in the Danakil is laborious would be an understatement. Each plate of salt is extracted from the earth’s crust, hand-chopped into massive slabs, and then reduced to manageable tiles. To transport the salt, thousands of donkeys and dromedaries (also called Somali or Arabian camels) are loaded to the hilt and form caravan lines that will trudge to Berahile, a make-shift commercial town three days walk away. Once in Berahile, eager merchants gather from across Ethiopia to buy and sell the mineral that both Ethiopian homemakers and farmers rely upon.

Camel caravan returning back to the salt plains of the Danakil to fetch another load of salt bricks.

This physical strain of salt production is compounded by the environment. The Afar salt farmers conduct business in an inhospitable landscape. Appropriately nicknamed the “Gateway to Hell,” the Danakil is one of the hottest places on Earth. With daily temperatures averaging 34˚C (and frequently touch 50˚C), the salt farmers of the Danakil work in an unimaginable cauldron in order to survive and to carry on the traditions that have sustained the Afar people for generations. From the first chop to sale, the process of salt mining in the Danakil is truly one of the most physically demanding ways any farmer could make a living.

Beginning of the vast expanse of salt deposits in the Danakil Depression of northern Ethiopia.

Leaving the region, I learned that Danakil salt was once so valuable that people used it to barter, an unofficial currency. I sat in silence hearing that now, with corporate competition and Ethiopian modernization on the rise, each hand-carved slab will only yield four Ethiopian birr (twenty cents per four-kilo brick). After spending a short amount of time learning about the process of salt farming in Ethiopia’s far north, I was taken back to the farms of East Tennessee and was again reminded about the effort and energy it takes to sustain an industry. I was reminded of the people who, despite making the industry prosper, never truly reap the rewards of their efforts. Here in Ethiopia, we find yet another example of how, for some, hard work doesn’t pay off.

More From Andrew Faulk

Road to Somewhere | Northern Ethiopia

July 28, 2020 in Travel Photography

More Travel Photography

Somewhere Above Ethiopia

May 03, 2020 in Travel Photography

I have a fear of flying and will do almost anything to make air transit emotionally bearable. I pack an extra shirt in my carry-on just in case I nervously sweat through the one on my back. I have plenty of peaceful music downloaded on my phone. I keep a special amulet or two in my pocket even though I am not religious or superstitious. I also hold a stash of “airplane candy” just in case. Short of having a service animal registered, I do all that I can to soothe my fears.

After boarding, I try not to look at other passengers, be over-stimulated by the romcoms playing on screens, or get too fixated on my pre-determined escape plan should the aircraft take a plunge (I honestly make an overly detailed action plan before each flight takes off. It’s ridiculous).

My greatest flight comfort is a window seat. If possible, I pay the additional fee to pre-select my seat or, at the very least, beg for one at the check-in counter. I prefer to be near a wing where, in my phobic-mind, the plane is most stable and where an exit row is usually nearby. Oddly, window seats make me feel less claustrophobic and I covet the tiny area of space between my seat and the convex edge of the plane. Those extra square inches make me feel that I have some sort of protective bubble around me.

Without a doubt, the best part about a window seat is the chance to view the landscapes far below, gaze at giant cumulonimbus clouds, or peer at stars that seem so much closer from 32,000 feet. The natural world, an arms-length away, is my soothing, constant in-flight entertainment.

After a ten-hour red-eye flight from Bangkok and a quick layover in Addis Ababa, I was glad to finally be on a domestic flight heading north towards Lalibela. The sun was up I could have my first real glimpse of Ethiopia.

From cruising altitude, it wasn’t possible to get any sort of perspective of Ethiopian culture (other than noticing the agrarian nature of the countryside). But that didn’t matter. I was able to recognize, at least from above, that I was already in love with Ethiopia.

For the duration of the short flight, I didn’t have any fear of flying. I didn’t sweat through my shirt or pull out the prayer beads from my pocket. Instead, I sat in awe of the expansive landscape and was again grateful for a window seat.