A closer look
Who doesn't love a beach vacation that smells of rotting fish and agricultural runoff? The Salton Sea was born from a catastrophic 1905 Colorado River engineering failure that accidentally flooded the desert. Decades later, it became a glamorous resort destination for celebrities before inevitably evaporating into a hyper-saline, toxic wasteland. Now, it serves as a bizarre pilgrimage site for urban photographers who find beauty in ecological collapse and abandoned mid-century motels.
