It’s Always about the Light

The sand dunes in Death Valley are legendary and a popular photographic subject. The weight of all those classic images weighed on my mind when I got up one cold January morning to make photographs. The immensity of the dunes was overwhelming, and it would’ve been easy to become frustrated trying to determine exactly what to photograph, until I reminded myself to just keep it simple and go back to basics—just pay attention to the light.

It was then that I saw the shadow being cast by this growth jutting out from the sand. The early morning light cast a shadow across the repeating ripples, and it provided me the photograph that would help set the tone for the rest of my time shooting that morning.