Senegal - The "Lac Rose"
These are a few pictures I would like
to share about a place called the "Lac Rose", literally, the pink lake
in Senegal, Africa.
That lake is close to Dakar, and the dunes where the Paris-Dakar race
is ending every year. The lake is in fact getting the pink color
because of the very high concentration of salt in the water. The local
population, extremely poor (see a next post about Senegal), is
collecting the salt from the water, and selling bags of salt at a very
low price to get enough to survive. This is an incredibly tough job
because the salt is attacking your skin, your eyes, and the
consequences are terrible.
I have been shooting most of the shots with
a Nikon D200 with a 18-200VR lens, because I needed the flexibility of
the range (almost impossible to switch lenses in such an environment
(lot of wind, dusty...) and also because I needed the 200mm for "non
obtrusive" photography. People don't like photographers over there...
Here are a few pics to give you an idea:
#1 the color of the water
#2 collecting the salt on sticks they put in the water
#3 collecting and carrying the salt
#4 an overview
#5 collecting and sorting
#6
carrying the salt
#7
just for the colors
and
just a mile away, in the area between the lake and the sea, they have
dunes where they can collect pure water for the agriculture (the dunes
are a kind of filter to retain the salt). In the lake, the salt is
destroying everything, no lifeform can survive in that water... and
then you see this:
#8 cultivating...
#9
the dunes - this is just a few hundred yards/meters away, the place
where the racers (Paris-Dakar) finish their journey...
Hope
you've enjoyed the tour... more coming soon