{"id":363986,"date":"2026-04-04T21:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T21:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/363986\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T21:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T21:46:16","slug":"aerial-photographers-hunt-for-salt-lake-easter-eggs-yields-striking-images-in-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/363986\/","title":{"rendered":"Aerial photographer’s hunt for salt lake ‘Easter eggs’ yields striking images in WA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott McCook hunts “eggs” from the air, but not the traditional Easter kind.<\/p>\n

He’s spent eight years photographing the changing hues of salt lakes<\/a> in WA’s Wheatbelt, hoping to find pools of yellow and orange left behind as the water begins to evaporate.<\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/p>\n

Scott McCook has been photographing egg-like lakes for eight years. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n

Mr McCook discovered the “eggy” phenomenon when he first began photographing larger salt lakes from helicopters and light planes.<\/p>\n

“Every now and then, I’d look beyond the lake and you’d see these little isolated round lakes,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They always just fascinated me.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Scott McCook specialises in aerial photography. (Supplied: Scott McCook)<\/p>\n

Long drives<\/p>\n

The Perth-based photographer said the small lakes usually appeared in wheat and canola fields.<\/p>\n

\"Green<\/p>\n

The lakes often start green then become yellow and orange over time. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n

“They fill in winter \u2026 they start green, and then as they start to evaporate, these colours start shifting,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr McCook uses near real-time satellite imagery to scope out potential locations.<\/p>\n

\"Over<\/p>\n

The lakes can also appear in groups. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n

“Once I was sort of armed with that knowledge, I was able to drive thousands and thousands of kilometres because they’re in the most random spots,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I am addicted to egg hunting.”Hunting natural hues<\/p>\n

The lakes’ natural colours usually transition from a “rotten egg” green to orange or yellow.<\/p>\n

“A lot of the poached egg, fried egg ones are like that,” Mr McCook said.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Scott McCook says the egg shape occurs as water evaporates from salt lakes. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n

“The surrounding part that looks like the sort of white of the egg is the area that’s already evaporated and gone white.<\/p>\n

“And then the little area in the middle is the last of the water that’s left.”<\/p>\n

\"Composite:<\/p>\n

Scott McCook says he occasionally “shifts” the vibrancy of naturally occurring colours in his images. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n

Mr McCook occasionally edits the images to make some of the colours more vibrant, especially photos of the pink and red lakes, to make them look “like pretty little Easter eggs”.<\/p>\n

A creative concreter<\/p>\n

A concreter by trade, Mr McCook pursues his passion for photography in his spare time.<\/p>\n

“That’s where my photography stemmed from, I wanted to escape the city and just go and do landscape photography,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Scott McCook’s photography has earned him international recognition. (Supplied: Scott McCook)<\/p>\n

But he didn’t tell people about his blue-collar job when he first started selling his images, worried about a perceived stigma.<\/p>\n

“I hid that I was in construction because I felt like, in the artistic circles and everything, you weren’t taken as seriously,” he said.<\/p>\n

“As I’ve got older and more into this, I’ve realised that’s a really silly way to look at it.”<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

Not all the lakes have a distinct egg shape. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n

Mr McCook said he hoped other people would be inspired by his photos of WA’s natural beauty \u2014 from its eggy lakes to rolling fields.<\/p>\n

“It was only when I took up aerial photography that I realised, ‘Holy cow, we are sitting on a gold mine,'” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Scott McCook says he hopes others can find inspiration in WA’s landscapes through his photos. (Supplied: Scott Jon McCook)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott McCook hunts “eggs” from the air, but not the traditional Easter kind. He’s spent eight years photographing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[120540,442,498,499,500,501,171628,47760,191383,156,1393,111,139,69,5296,120536,191384,191385,120537],"class_list":{"0":"post-363986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-aerial-photography","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-easter","15":"tag-easter-eggs","16":"tag-egg-hunt","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-good-news","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-photography","23":"tag-salt-lakes","24":"tag-scott-jon-mccook","25":"tag-scott-mccook","26":"tag-wheatbelt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}