Salt’s ionic lattices are one of the central elements of organic life. But even though the extraction of sea salt is one of the oldest forms of human landscaping, we rarely ask where salt comes from and how it is produced. Sea salt production sites are found all over the world, usually located around shallow shorelines. Tom Hegen has explored these magical landscapes from the air and obtained spectacular images in the process. This gorgeously illustrated book shows how the landscape has been shaped by salt mining and how the mining process has created structures that take on an almost painterly, abstract quality in Hegen's photographs. Salt Works is a study of color and geometry, an ode to beauty of the everyday.

Text by: Annalena Erhardt, Mark Kurlansky, Sabine Schwarzfischer