A salt mine in the Nullarbor Plain of southwestern Australia. (Emma Phillips)

Australian photographer Emma Phillips was in search of something new to photograph, when she stumbled upon salt mines in the Nullarbor Plain, a semi-arid region in western Australia.

“I had decided that I wanted to take some pictures of industry in Australia, but I’d been finding it difficult to get access to certain industrial plants,” Phillips told weather.com. “I was in the desert on a trip through Australia and by chance I stumbled upon these salt mines.”

(MORE: Abandoned Salt Mine Transformed into a Museum)

Phillips’ photo series, aptly titled “Salt,” features whitewashed images of the alien-like landscape of the salt mines. In the series, she juxtaposes objects and remnants of the industry with the unique environment.

“The arc of a conveyor belt juts obliquely from a towering apex of salt; a caravan, itself blasted white, sits oxidizing in the midst of a vast, sun-beaten, white plane; an orange digger chugs across an otherwise colorless frame. Phillips has used salt as an allegory – reduced and economized – for the Australian interior,” according to the description of Phillips’ book, “Salt.”

See Phillips’ photos of the strange landscape above. To see more of Phillips’ work visit her website.