Michael Wilkins
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Aerial photograph of a braided river spreading silver channels across a broad gravel valley floor between mountains near Glenorchy.

The Braids

Glenorchy, New Zealand · August 2020

DJI Mavic Air 2, 5 millimetres, f 2.8, 1/30 of a second, ISO 100

Rivers up here don't pick a path. They take all of them.

At the head of Lake Wakatipu the rivers come down off the mountains and refuse to choose a channel — they braid across the whole valley floor, re-drawing themselves after every rain. From the ground it's just gravel and water. From above it's circuitry. New Zealand does this to you: you keep flying the drone just to check what the land has been doing all along.

Part of The Southern Alps, a series.