David Maisel's "Black Maps" photos

This aerial photo depicts evaporation ponds near Utah's Great Salt Lake. It's part of photographer David Maisel's "Black Maps" exhibition, collecting his huge aerial photographs of strip mines, lake beds, and other large features that aren't easily recognizable out of context. Smithsonian's latest issue includes a short profile of Maisel. From the article:

In 1993, to be closer to the topography he was most passionate about, he moved from New York City to San Francisco. From there he scoured the Western states, looking for bizarre patterns. He says locations tend to choose him, as when he first spotted the glittering pink bed of Owens Lake through a car window.

Maisel often hires a local pilot to take him up in a four-seater Cessna he likens to an old Volkswagen beetle with wings. Then, somewhere between 500 and 11,000 feet, the pilot banks the plane and the photographer props open a window and starts shooting with his hand-held, medium-format camera. "Although the subjects are always of concern to me, I do think that I want to lead the viewer into a space where they can do their own thinking," he says.