Sand Dune Sunrise-Death Valley

Dune Glow

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As I mentioned in the SuperBloom Post, we took a day trip to Death valley recently.

We got to the parking lot at the Sand Dunes around 5:40am and the lot was 70% full already! I found my buddy Bernie’s car(we planned to meet up at the first Mesquite Sand Dune Parking lot before sunrise) and parked next to it… I wasn’t sure if he was already out on the dunes or not, but when I got out of my car I noticed Bernie woke up from a deep slumber in the front seat of his car. The sky was already starting to brighten..so we grabbed our gear and started out over the dunes… If you’ve never been to the dunes, they are massive and during the winter months there are foot prints everywhere. Foot traffic and sand dune photos don’t often mix well. Feeling a bit bummed that we were already a bit late(you can’t stop the sun from rising! 🙂 ) to find some cool compositions without foot traffic I quickly realized I wasn’t going to find the perfect location. Instead I stopped and looked at what was right in front of me. This image was right in front of me.

Lesson here is to have some ideas of what you want to capture, but not be afraid to quickly change and just go with the flow!