Rhythmic Excursion

Great Sand Dunes National Park seems out of place with its location in a high valley in Colorado.  Unlike other landscape subjects, the windy dunes are always changing which guarantees that no two photos will ever be alike.  I had imagined this scene a year earlier.  But it wasn’t obvious when I found it since it was a dark moonless night.  As I gazed across the dunes on my hike back to the parking lot, the image flashed in my mind’s eye.  It has all of the qualities that I wanted – sand ripples in the foreground, soft overlapping dunes in the background, and it faced north which would result in the circular star trail pattern.  It was satisfying to create this sublime scene out of darkness.