White Wave

I captured White Wave in the White Sands Monument Park, during my recent photography trip to New Mexico.

The day was very windy, to the point that it was challenging to take a good stable capture, which was also made more difficult by the shifting sands under the tripod.

I walked for about half an hour in the desert looking for a minimalist composition, a strong leading line and a simple uncluttered view of the pristine sands.

 

The pastel turquoise shadows on the left immediately drew me to this dune.

Looking for the best composition was relatively easy: the strong sand patterns in the foreground are the perfect visual anchor to bring the eye to the leading line the sweeps vertically through the image and markedly divides the frame in two: shadows on the left, highlights on right.

By choice I did not include any reference of size, like a plant or a bush, to the image to leave the ambiguity about the size of the dune itself.

The challenge of this capture squarely lies in the dynamic range: to make the image work I had to capture enough information to keep plenty of the details in the shadows on the left and in the highlights on the top. 

I also took two captures, focusing first on the foreground and then on the background to achieve critical sharpness across the entire frame.

The real fun came back in my printing lab, when I printed the image: to complement the soft, pastel nature of White Wave, I reached for Hahnemüle Museum Etching, my matte paper of choice these days, which also offers a very tactile experience.

 

 

But dynamic range is not the best quality of any matte paper, which required me to create several prints to find the right balance to bring out the details in the shadows.

I'm delighted with the final results: White Wave has been very well received so far and I'm proudly offering it to you in Limited Edition print exclusively on my store.

Check it out below and let me know in which room you think it'd be working best.

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