White Sands National Monument - Sandscapes

These have to be some of my favorite images ever.  Whenever I saw images like this in the past, I always thought that the photographer must have manipulated them, because I just couldn't imagine this type of perfection just sort of "being" in the world.  However, that was before I visited White Sands and saw this for myself. I wish I could take even partial credit for this beauty, but this is all Mother Nature, with absolutely no enhancement on my part!

I love the sort of vast feel to the above image, with the sand ripples leading up to what looks like a sharp crease in the dunes.  Amazing what the wind & sand can do when they work together! 

I thought these creases, or ridges looked like duplicates of each other.  Too perfect to be real, but they are!

This image seems so abstract, it kind of reminds me of a Georgia O'Keefe painting, not that I'm comparing myself to her!!  She's too fabulous for that!  It just captures that same sense of flow and peace and perfection that she conveyed in her paintings.

This last image really accentuates the ridges/creases created by the wind.  I just love the flowing line thru the image and the shadows created by the early morning light.

 

Enjoy!

White Sands National Monument - Sparser Vegetation

I've often seen photos of one piece of life growing in a setting that seems very sparse and wondered where the photographer managed to find such scenery.  Well, I don't know if all of those photos I've seen over the years were taken at White Sands, but it certainly is a place where one can capture some breathtakingly beautiful images of some very sparse vegetation!  Take a look - 

One of the things I really like about this image are the different lines throughout the image.  There are the obvious lines of the desert grass, the 2 horizontal lines formed by the different levels of dunes and the lines created by the wind against the sand (in the very foreground of the image).  From my description, it sounds like this would be a very "busy" image, but, as you can see, it's incredibly soothing and peaceful.

Here's another image of that same little clump of desert grass, shifted over a bit.  In this image, the foreground texture is still visible, but you can see a bit more of the landscape of the dunes and the soft lines the dunes create.  They almost look like waves, don't they.  The mountains in the distance are, I believe, the San Andreas.

In this last image of my little desert grass, I've backed off a bit from the first image to give you a sense of the vastness of this incredibly white sandy desert.  This sounds a bit odd, I know, but White Sands reminds me a bit of Antarctica in terms of the stark beauty of it.

I thought this image created a little bit busier feel because in addition to the dried grass in the foreground, you can see some more gentle slopes of the dunes in the middle of the image, and a soft little sand eddy up top.  This was all created by the wind as it shifts the sand around.  I can see visiting here again and again, because it will always be subtly different each visit due to the shifting of the sand.

A bit more vegetation in this image, but I included it in this post because my focus is always drawn to the dried grass in the foreground, with the long shadow it casts due to the early morning light.  Also, I love the more pronounced ripple of the sand in this shot.

 

Enjoy!

Camping at Oliver Lee State Park

This past weekend, we went camping down in Alamogordo, New Mexico at a state park called Oliver Lee State Park.  Here are just a few of the great views from our campsite!

As I look in one direction from our campsite, I'm looking up at what I believe are the Sacramento Mountains.  What a majestic view!

 

In the opposite direction, I was able to capture the rays of the sun at sunset as they silhouetted this tree.  I love the way you can see all the leafy branches - looks almost lacy, in a way.

 

 

I couldn't resist sharing this image.  See the "little dot" in the upper right area of the photo (in the sky)?  That's actually the moon in the sky during early afternoon!  I don't often see that, so I thought it was worth sharing!

 

Enjoy!

White Sands National Monument - Vegetation and Shadows

These images were all taken on a couple of the "trails" at White Sands.  The early morning sun was just wonderful to capture the stark beauty of the place.....and the delicate colors that are on display there.

I really liked the way the sun gently lit the gentle rolling dunes and the grasses that grow there.  

What a soft, gentle way to start the day......

I just love how majestic this one yucca plant and dried bloom looked set in the dunes.

I also really was surprised by the amount of color there was on the dunes.  The tones were very subtle and muted, but color was most definitely there.

 

Enjoy!

White Sands National Monument - Jeff & Miki

This was one of my favorite places to visit on this camping trip, and is one of our "bucket list" items - White Sands National Monument!  Jeff was great and got up really early one morning so we could be there during the early morning light, which is one of the great times for photography!  These are the fun shots of Jeff & Miki!

Here's an image of Jeff on one of the dune trails, and I use that term lightly, since the wind there keeps shifting the sands around.  It gives you just a bit of an idea of how big this area is.  This particular shot is really just a tiny, tiny piece of the entire sandy monument, and look how small Jeff is in comparison!

Miki just loved racing around on the dunes!  She was a bit confused, tho, because she couldn't find the water!!  I keep telling her she has the best life of all her puppy siblings, and I think she'd definitely agree with me on this morning!

Jeff decided to challenge Miki to a race up the dunes - not the best challenge he's ever issued to anyone!!  He jokingly said it took him about 120 steps to get up this dune and only about 30 steps to go down it!

The sand dune version of  Rocky - is this Rocky XII or something?

I think you know who won the race down the dunes.......

 

Enjoy!

Space Museum - Alamogordo, NM

Another place we visited during our camping weekend was the Space Museum in Alamogordo, NM.  One of the cool things that I didn't get a shot of was Jeff flying the space shuttle simulator - altho the controls were quite sluggish, he did manage to land us safely!  Here are some other cool things we saw there -

Here was an actual space crew capsule from the Apollo space program.  Altho it was fairly decent sized, when I thought about 3 folks being in it for any length of time, it seemed rather small and cramped.  Oh, well - I guess that comfort wasn't really the point!

This piece was interesting.  It's a piece of a German V2 rocket from World War II, that tumbled out of space and landed not far from the museum here in New Mexico!  Altho it is quite beat up, it was cool to be close to something from WWII built by our enemy (at least for that war).

This was a rocket used by the Army.  I just really liked the clean lines and the way it looked against the blue, blue sky.

It was cool to be able to stand this close to one of the rocket boosters from the Gemini rockets.  I really like the pattern of it, and may try manipulating this image into some cool background paper for my art.  I'll bet those engineers didn't even consider that when building this!

 

This is a view of the inside of a Saturn V rocket engine - again, I was able to get really close to it.  I just loved the pattern of this, and once again, this may find its way into my art.  I know, those engineers who developed this are probably rolling over in their graves.....or I'm sending them there!  It's just so cool, tho!

 

Enjoy!

Driving Around Cloudcroft

On one of the days of our camping weekend, we decided to explore up in the Sacramento Mountains, around a town named Cloudcroft. Take a look at the images -

We pulled into a scenic overlook area and I got this shot looking down from about 9,000 feet.  The white band across the image is White Sands National Monument.  It looks so far away, but it was really just a short Jeep ride! 



We also spotted some deer munching on the greenery on the side of the road.  There were actually quite a few, but most ran into the trees as we approached.  This one little guy was more curious than afraid!

One of the things I love about New Mexico is the diversity of views and vegetation.  Love these tall pine trees - and it smelled great, too!

Here was a piece of history - the remainder of a trestle from a train that used to run up the mountains into Cloudcroft.  There's a trail to hike so that you can approach this up close, but we didn't do that this time - next visit we will, tho!

 

Enjoy!