White Sands National Park in New Mexico is one of my favorite places for photography. It is a visually stunning and has so much to offer in terms of shapes, patterns, and textures across the landscape. I’ve made three trips to the park over the last decade, and upon reflection, it struck me that I did not have any images with colors in the sky (other than blue). I decided to return to White Sands in November 2024 for two days to see what kind of images I could capture with color in the sky. As daylight savings time had just changed sunrise from 7:30 to 6:30, shooting during morning twilight and sunrise were not possible, as the park entrance gates does not open until 7:00 AM. That meant I was limited to two golden hour, sunset and evening twilight opportunities to try my luck! For the golden hour, I decided to make some images that prominently featured the sun as part of the composition to create some warm desert atmosphere.
The first afternoon it was extremely windy. There were towering clouds of gypsum sand blowing across the dunes. This created some great atmospheric effects and color on the horizon.
A much-deformed yucca plant casts late afternoon shadows on a small valley floor between the dunes.
All the dune ripples I could find oriented parallel to the mountains where the sun was setting. I used this wind-carved break in the ripples to create an illuminated, zigzagging line leading to the sun.
My favorite sunset shot of the day. There was a great orange glow in the sky this night.
I attempted several twilight shots while walking back to the car. The park closes a half an hour after sunset, and the park rangers actively “encourage” you to pack it in and depart as it is getting dark. This means you can’t venture too far into the dunes from the parking areas for your sunset and twilight compositions, and you don’t have a lot of time after the sun goes down before you need to be back in your vehicle and hitting the road.
The color palette when looking to the south was completely different.
The last shot of the day, taken from the edge of the parking area, with my tracks from my walk back leading out into the dunes.
Sunset on the second day, while beautiful, lacked the color intensity of the night before. There was no wind and blowing sand to reflect the sun’s light on the horizon. I tried a different area of the park, hoping for some different compositions. I found a viewpoint with nicely spaced, layered dunes leading back to the mountains. This area also did not have many footprints on the dunes. This wide-angle view captures some of the last light on the dunes.
The last rays of sunset filter through a mountain pass in the western sky. I liked this cropped in view of the last rays of light over this set of dunes.
A lone straggler walking back during early twilight.
Late twilight color in the sky looking to the north. Another hiker taking cell phone pictures.
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