I have always wanted to photograph sand dunes. It’s wild to me that they even exist, that they haven’t just blow away into the ether after all these years. They constantly shift and make amazing patterns in the ground, and there’s a beauty in the homogeneity of the landscape that I knew would be difficult but rewarding to photograph.

I had also always wanted to explore Colorado but I’ll be honest, I’m a little afraid of bears on solo pre-dawn hikes. So I stuck with Colorado and chose the Sand Dunes instead. Ain’t no sand bears that I’m aware of. At least that’s what I told myself. So I booked a Thursday night flight with a return on Saturday in early May, and headed out.

My first day was incredibly windy, which kept most people out of the park and off the dunes . Although the sand moving at 40mph stung like crazy and got all over my gear (I was super grateful for my weather-sealed camera and lenses), I had my most memorable photography experiences to date, capturing the motion of the sand over the dunes.

I did not realize until I chatted with a local photographer (that happened to be out with me at 4am on my second morning there), that I actually visited at the perfect time. The stream that you can see in some of the photos below would disappear about two weeks after my trip, to return again the following winter. The weather was cool enough that during the day, it wasn’t too hot, and in the night and early morning, parts of the stream froze to create really unique foregrounds.

Colorado is a beautiful state and though most folks visit to see the beautiful Rockies, if you have some extra time, drive down south and check out Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.