White Sands National Monument

Last week, I encountered one of the most challenging photographic situations while photographing White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Actually, the place is like a landscape photographer’s playground, and I felt like a kid in a candy store. Because the sand is so white, shooting in mid-day sun or even on an overcast day will render nearly texture-less landscapes; you really have to shoot at the beginning and/or at the end of the day to get some directional light across the sand to achieve dimensionality in the images. On top of that, the dunes are so vast that you don’t know where to begin. I hiked for miles in just a few hours total in two days just because I kept seeing things that I thought would look better than where I was standing. And in the golden hours of light, you really only have a small window of time to get to your spot and hope the trek in the sand was worth it, because you never know what it really looks like until you get to the spot you want to shoot from. So in actuality, shooting White Sands was pretty easy, but because there was so much that I wanted to do in a very small amount of time, I had to move really fast. Not a small task when you’re lugging a bunch of gear and a tripod in sand.

One cool thing about white sand is that it takes on the color of the dominant light source, depending on when and at what angle you shoot it. Take the following image, for example. Because it’s near sunset, and the sunlight is still fairly strong, the front-lit dune (sun behind camera) looks like ordinary brown sand due to the yellow-orange light at the end of the day. Notice also how the shaded area looks blue, which reflects the light from the sky above it.

The following image, however, was taken in complete shade, and the blue sky produces a cool-toned color cast on the sand.

The next image, taken shortly after sunrise, more accurately presents the sand in its true color.

Pastel-like colors after the sun sets below the horizon:

Similar tones are produced while the sun rises in the morning. See the little hint of life on the crest?

A little more dune life, with a hint of the season on this beautiful cottonwood:

Here are a few extras.

As one might guess, I can’t wait to go back.  Please leave a comment if you’ve found this post interesting and/or helpful. 🙂