Five days in White Sands Monument Park

White Sands Monument Park, in New Mexico, is the largest desert of its kind in the world, made of gypsum sand and white dunes all the way up to the horizon, the glistering whiteness looks like snow, almost tricking your senses into believing you are in front of a winter scene.

But it's indeed a desert. A beautiful desert. 

I spent five days in White Sands and I had the chance to shoot four sunsets. Every evening I chose a different direction and walked into the desert until I found the composition I was looking for.

The average trip was about thirty minutes long and thirty minutes more to walk back.

The wind was very strong for three of the four days, making shooting a challenge. The second day was particularly challenging: despite my best efforts to stabilize the tripod, half of the exposures came out blurred.

Walking back to the main road against the wind felt like one more challenge to overcome in the quest for the One Image, a challenge I was more than happy to take on.

Every sunset I chose a different scene and worked the new location thoroughly until I was satisfied with my composition.

For my images, I was mostly looking for simple, but original compositions. I was very attracted by the graphical curves of the dunes, where the side away from the sun was immersed in a beautiful turquoise color caused by the diffuse of the sky on the white sand.

I was also after at least one wide panorama to immerse you, my viewer, in the same  environment where I was spending my evenings. I believe I captured a worthy one.

Only in the last day I moved to shooting the iconic yuccas. Yuccas are beautiful and iconic, but I didn't want to be just another photographer shooting yuccas in White Sands.

At the end of the week, I went back home with four images, one per day, that I'm satisfied to share with you once I'm done working on them . It's more than I expected: surely I must thank the amazing location for it.

Check out the first Limited Edition print of the series by clicking on the image below and let me know how it would look on one of your walls.

White Sands New Mexico

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