Welcome to the Bolivian Salt Flats! (Salar de Uyuni).  It looks pretty cool hay? Seeing a photo of a full sized car and it appearing as if it’s the size of a shoe?

If you haven’t been to Bolivia – go! And if you’ve been but you haven’t been to the salt flats –   GO BACK!

Essentially in the Southeast part of Bolivia there are these salt flats.  They’re massive (largest in the world actually!) Around 11,000 kms² to be precise.  Due to the flatness and vastness of these salts flats, the Bolivians hold the Dakar Rally there.

Did you know?

These Bolivian Salt Flats (Salar de Uyuni) remain so perfectly flat because of the seasonal flooding that occurs there?
Note – The dry season, which is when I went is usually from May up until September/October.

 How to get the Bolivian Salt Flats?

The easiest and most reliable way of getting there would be by doing a tour! You can find tours to the Bolivian salt flats starting from either Bolivia, Argentina or Chile.  I was in Chile when I began mine.  It was a 3 – day tour and on the third day they take you to these amazing salt flats. I chose to do my tour with World White Travel.  There are a lot of dodgy companies out there so try to be cautious when picking.  My experience with World White Travel was amazing though.  and the food was great! (note – their website is in Spanish so let me know if you have any questions for them)

I’ll explain in another blog how the tour works (because its lots of fun), as I just want to focus on creating these awesome photos

TIP – on your way there have a good think about what types of photos you want to take.  Maybe you want to take a prop or something with you so you can take some really great and original shots! Some people use a dinosaur and create photos as if its chasing them … and others like to think they’re bigger than their partner.

How it works?

Perspective photos.  So basically when you’re in the middle of the Bolivian salt flats, all you can see is white.  You look out to the horizon and there’s nothing but a white salty, flat ground.  These are the perfect conditions for taking some mean perspective photos.
Now before you get snapping you need to decide what you’d like to appear large in the photo and what you’d you like to appear as small in the photo.  Take this example below.

To take this shot I had to stand a few meters away from our tour guide who was taking the photo.  All my friends in the background … well they were about 15 meters away.  See how you can start creating this illusion?

With this in place, the world is your oyster!

NOTE – Be careful if you have ‘autofocus’ turned on as this may blur the background.

TIP – Be sure to visit during the dry season which generally runs between April and October.  The rainy season creates another phenomena where the ground becomes flooded and appears as a mirror!

FINAL TIP

Use a ‘rapid burst’ feature on your phone or camera if you want to get a shot of everyone jumping.  AND make sure the photographer holds the camera low, close to the ground.

Be sure to contact me either through my site here or on my Facebook here for if you have any questions : -)

Happy photos!!