One of my favorite places to explore photographically is the badlands and deserts of the American Southwest. I usually spend several weeks exploring there every year in the fall to take advantage of cooler weather and colorful foliage. Travel throughout this entire region is challenging due to its massive size and the long driving distances required, so each year I select just a portion of the Southwest, and this year I concentrated on the deserts of California. There are several, some of them, like Death Valley, are very well known and others much less popular. I like the less-traveled ones because I enjoy being alone in the landscape. Another benefit is fewer footprints that quickly spoil potential compositions, requiring me to wait for the wind to erase them.
This dune field was quite remote, and the road to get there was long, with deep sand in many places. When I got close to the most promising-looking dune complexes and parked, mine was the only vehicle that had traveled this way since a heavy wind a couple of days before, and I saw no one else before I left the next day.
I was wandering among the dunes looking for anything interesting when I came upon this scene with its wonderful array of dunes, curving ridges, ripples everywhere, and the perfect late afternoon light to reveal the textures and shapes the wind had created. I initially made a color version of this composition, which I liked, but a few months later I decided to try a black-and-white conversion. The silvery look I was able to create just felt right and better fit the feelings I had while being there and composing this image.
