In spring of 2023 we set out on an epic road trip visiting most of the contiguous United States west of the Rocky Mountains. Our first destination was Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. This was our first experience ever in a dune field, and we were really enthusiastic about the photographic opportunities laid before us. We spent two days in this national park and made approximately 600 photographs between the two of us. It was the most photographically abundant stop of our road trip, and probably the most photographically productive two days of our lives.

Day One was cloudy and windy, and the light was very flat on the dunes. The variations of color, contrast, luminosity, atmosphere, and geometry that define one bit of sand from another were subtle indeed. We were not going to let the overcast and drizzle dampen our thorough enjoyment of that wondrous new landscape. So we shifted our mindset, adjusted our cameras, and made photographs in monochrome, where an exaggeration of luminosity and contrast do not feel outside the realm of truth. Hiking freely across the sand, we discovered a heightened awareness of all the subtlety in every direction and how it magnified in our minds. As we raised the cameras to our eyes again and again, it was no longer the real world we were imaging, but these magnified subtleties infused with our enthusiasm and love of this marvelous, ever-changing scene. It was the most profound flow state we've ever experienced.

Day Two started much the same as the first with clouds and rain curtains over the dunes and surrounding mountains. We were pretty beat up and sandblasted from the previous day, so we elected to stay out of the dune field, and make our photographs from the flat periphery instead. As the afternoon turned into evening, the clouds broke somewhat and we received a few hours of hard, low-angled light on the dunes that culminated with an impressive stormy sunset.

We found this collection very easy to put together. The enthusiasm and the previsualization we experienced in the dunes was easy to return to when we began the work of processing the images. We settled on 50 monochrome photographs and an equal 50 color photographs that we think best translate the experience of roaming across the moving landscape of sand, and the sensitivity we experienced towards the visual cues both external and internal.