Photographer Siegfried Modola traveled to document Ethiopia’s ancient salt trade in the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest and harshest environments on earth, with an average annual temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 Celsius). For centuries, merchants have traveled there with caravans of camels to collect salt from the surface of the vast desert basin. The mineral is extracted and shaped into slabs, then loaded onto the animals before being transported back across the desert so that it can be sold around the country. Read Siegfried’s personal account here.

Photographer Eric Thayer travelled to Brooks County, Texas and Reynosa, Mexico to investigate the rising rates of immigrant deaths along the border, spending time at a migrant’s hostel in Mexico and with U.S. Border Patrol in Brooks County. In 2012, sheriff’s deputies in Brooks County found 129 bodies, around double the amount from the year before and six times the number recorded in 2010. Most of those who died succumbed to the punishing heat and rough terrain that comprise the ranch lands of south Texas. Many migrants, after spending several weeks travelling through Mexico and past the Rio Grande, spend a few days in a “stash house”, such as the Casa del Migrante, in Reynosa, Mexico, and many are ignorant of the treacherous journey ahead. Read Eric’s personal account here and a Reuters story here.