White Sands National Park, NM

White Sands in New Mexico is world’s largest - 275 sq miles of rare Gypsum sand dunefield. During the day, there is a lot of play with light-n-shadow, contours, lines, .. It’s all about discovering these artforms in this vast area nature created over the last 10,000+ years. It is humanly impossible to reach/capture all of them, but here is a glimpse of a few.

Once you enter the dunes, it is easy to get ‘greedy’, or get lost - both in space and time.. so make sure to pay attention, keep a GPS device with you, and most importantly Water!

Sunsets

Sunsets and Sunrises are simply Magical here.. with the backdrop of dark-rocked San Andres (West) and Sacramanto Mountains (East) lining the bed of these white Gypsum sand dunes.. It’s all about being there, finding the right dunes, that have not been walked on.. and nature unfolds the magic right in front of your eyes! As the sun sinks behind the mountains basking the sky in that glorious golden glow, the blue hour follows, turning the dunes purple! And you just keep clicking...

Again, caution + gps + water. I didn't realize how far I went inside the dunefield to find a good spot.. It's only when I started walking back, I realized how many dunes I had to cross while it was getting darker by the minute!

Night with Bortle 3 skies

If you apply for a Special permit to be in the park at night / if you are camping, you are all set to get a different type of experience!

The darkness here, is 'Blinding'! You better know where you are going, so plan ahead when there is light, pay attention, and be safe.. An app like Stellarium or Photopills can help plan your shot. The reward is up there for grabs.. the glorious starry sky! You can see the Milky way with your naked eye, and your camera sensor kept open for 20-30 seconds can see it even better! From here on, it is your imagination as to how you compose your foreground and the Milky Way..

As the dawn tiptoes in, the sunlight breaks through, birds start chirping, and the cycle repeats.

A Birthday Event Shoot

Had a recent shoot for a 50th Birthday event. Every shoot I learn something, there is always a takeaway - like a retrospective!

The following were the two that stood out -

1. All party venues don’t have enough AC outlets.. better carry Extension chords
2. Murphy’s law is irritatingly consistent! I was carrying two cameras for this shoot on a double camera strap. My D810 with a wide angle Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 with the Nikon SB-900 speedlight, and my Mirrorless Nikon Z7 Rii with my lovely 70-200mm f/2.8. Now for cake cutting, I was planning on using the wide angle.

The cake cutting begins and D810 with the wide angle lens, shows “Card error”.. Removing the card, the battery, putting it back does not work. The camera is stuck. Just a few minutes back I had removed a full card when the camera was On.. This probably caused the error? Who knows..

I just stepped back, made sure nobody was blocking my view and framed a wide shot with my Z7 and 70-200mm, now set at 70mm. Thankfully it worked and the light was enough.

Those few moments in an Event Photographer’s life send chills down your spine. I have had many such incidents - either the card stopped working (it’s nice that there are 2 cards in most modern professional cameras and I have one of them set as a “Backup” so every photo gets saved on both cards), or the camera had too many clicks and just wanted to take a nap, or a battery dies at the most crucial moment, or a card goes Full, or the camera simply refuses to focus..

Each such moment teaches one to have a backup plan!