White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
Amazingly, just two weeks before I captured this image it had been snowing! I spent four days in New Mexico tramping over the dunes in below freezing temperatures. This location was about four miles in from the roadside–it is incredibly easy to get lost, as there are no landmarks to guide you and every dune looks the same after a while. I set off pre-dawn when the hike was easy because the sand is frozen and as hard as concrete–under the weight of 50 kg of equipment it is a welcome relief from the normal trudge through shifting desert sands! Towards late afternoon as the ice melted, it became harder to compose a shot as I couldn’t risk getting too close and having my footsteps visible in the image. Nearing the end of the day, I came across these two perfect yuccas growing out of the rippling desert floor. The late afternoon sun lengthened the shadows over the contours of the dunes which leads the eye into the centre of the shot.
45 Artist Proof / 950 Limited Edition
