I love dunes! I haven’t had a chance to see any in a long time so I planned a short trip to spend an afternoon at the Monahans Sandhills not too far away. I’ve been critically examining some of my past images, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to train my eye. The weather was great when I got there, with many clouds in the sky, and I was excited to explore and see what I would find.

As I made my way through the sandhills I was being careful to stick to the trails of footprints that were already there so that I didn’t make any tracks that would mar any pictures I wanted to take. The sun was mostly staying hidden behind the clouds, but occasionally it would peak out and cast interesting shadows. The first shot I framed was an abstract composition taking advantage of the strong lines, textures, and layers I was seeing. I used an aperture of f16 on my long lens to get a big enough depth of field that all the details and vegetation in the midground were in focus while slightly softening the foreground and background.

After pressing on and wandering around for a while, I walked up to this composition. It was very simple/minimal, a line of vegetation leading up to a large impressive dune with dramatic clouds in the background. Even with footprints all over the dune, I liked the shot so much that I just had to take the picture. How could I not?

As I kept making my way through the park the light was fading fast. After a while, I sat down in the sand for a water break and just decided to enjoy the peace around me. It was a great day, even if I didn’t take that many pictures. It’s not always about how many images I come away with, it’s about slowing down, appreciating what’s around me, and learning to see. You should watch the video below if you’d like to join me as I aimlessly meander through the sandhills. Until next time, bye for now.