I was recently at the Great Sand Dunes National Park, in Southern Colorado, and thought everyone would be interested in hearing about that place. It is in a pretty remote area - about 40 miles from Alamosa Colorado. Not many services nearby, so you are really camping, but really interesting and beautiful scenery. According to the literature, the Sand Dunes there are the tallest in the North Americas. The dunes rise over 750 feet tall from the base - which is at 8200 feet. They back up to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, with 13+ thousand foot peaks.

I hesitate to show shots because I do not think they do the place justice, but here are a few.


The first two shots are of a Sunrise - the first is 4 shots stitched. - note the deer in the bottom left of the first one to show scale.













I have several shots of just the sand dunes - this is one of my favorites - taken just before sunset... 4 shots stitched together...







This last one is a pano - It is not much of a shot, but I included to give an indication of the scale of the sand dunes...




I hope everyone finds this interesting. As always, I would appreciate constructive comments.

Dave

Interesting shots Dave. Nice stiches. If it were me I would have zoomed out a bit more to crop out the foreground greenery though as the subject are the dunes and the mountains behind. Are they somthing you could enter and hike around? If so I would have been seriously tempted to get some isolation shots of the dunescapes.

Roman

Thanks for the comments Roman. I think I see what you mean about cropping out the greenery - that would draw attention more to the dunes and majesty of the mtns. And yes - you can walk all over the dunes. It is quite a hike to the top in the soft sand.....

When you say "isolation shots of the dunescapes" - do you mean something similar to the 3rd shot above? perhaps without the sky? I am just now starting to process some of my close ups of the dunes - they are similar to #3 - with different shadows, different dune shapes and with and without the sky.

This is one of my first attempts at stitching - I found it really hard to visualize the desired composition in the end when I knew I was going to stitch the shots together. It is almost like trying to paint a picture without the confines of canvas... I am trying to stitch the shots because I can make larger prints, and do not feel as confined - but it will take practice.

Thanks again for the comments.

Hey Dave,

Thank you for sharing. I agree with Roman's comments. I would have tried to zoom in and do tighter work. The greenery seems to distract from the sands. When shooting Death Valley's dunes (which are much smaller), I work very hard to get in tight and focus on patterns and textures and trying to keep other distracting elements out...though honestly, I have tried adding the foreground greenery as well - it is so tempting to try, I have just found that it has not worked for me in the way that I would like.

James

ok - thanks James and Roman - now I understand. I remember your tight shots of the dunes - that would add impact that is missing.

This was my first time shooting dunes - now I need to go back. LOL

Thanks again.
Dave

Yep...what James said. Starkness is the beauty of the dunes, to add the grassy area is to remove that focal point.

Good first run, good practice, I think you can take this new info with you to the next outing there and come back with some REALLY nice tigheter shots. One of the thing I do with Panos is I try and find my first horizontal shot that ebmodys the subject as I see it. Then I tilt my camera to portrait mode and limit myself to no more than 7 shots with about 1/4 overlap. I shoot just a bit outside my origonal horizontal single shot compostion.

I look forward to seeing what you get on the next trip.

Roman