Great Sand Dunes

I have finally finished sorting through the photographs of the Great Sand Dunes National Park that Sergey and I visited a couple of weeks ago. Although it was very windy and rather cold, the weather was just perfect for photography with the beautiful cloud patches in the sky and rapidly changing light.

I have a very nicely stitched panoramic version of the below shot that I will upload for your viewing pleasure later. This was one of those “accidental” point and shoot shots that I didn’t even think would make it to the website. I got out of the car, shot one horizontal and 9-10 vertical shots for panorama and left the location. Once I got home and stitched the panorama, I wished that I had stayed a little longer :)

We then found a parking spot and decided to hike for a few miles up the sand dunes. While crossing a very shallow stream, I stood right in the middle and took a couple of shots of the mountains, the sand and the water:

Finding a good curve with no human footprints was almost impossible, although I still managed to somehow capture this one:

Once we crossed the first hill, I found these disappearing footprints:

The textures and patterns of the dunes were absolutely beautiful!

The sun was peeking out of the clouds every once in a while, giving some nice opportunities for photography:

I tried to shoot against the sun a few times, but got a lot of flare – mainly because of the front clear filter. Flares can be fun every once in a while, but this was not one of those… Oh well, lesson learned!

As we were climbing higher and higher, the clouds were getting darker and angrier:

Then the sun came right out of the clouds and changed the color of the dunes to a beautiful, golden color:

The sun was rapidly setting and painting the scene with those golden rays of light, coming through the clouds:

Then the sun went behind the thick clouds for good, killing the light around us:

We then stayed for another 15 minutes after sunset and waited for the light to hit the clouds:

Walking back to the parking lot was very tiring. We probably hiked for 3-4 miles that day and walking on the sand with heavy gear definitely added to it! :)

Hope you enjoyed these!