tonal, originally uploaded by McMike-.

Taken amongst the sand dunes near Stove Pipe Wells in Death Valley NP, CA. A perfect lighting condition has to occur to allow for smooth tonal transitions to happen on a subject like sand dunes.

Normally it's either overly contrasty, or completely flat lighting. We spent quite a bit of time on the dunes during our Death Valley 2008 trip and while I didn't get a large sampling of shots, I did get a couple where the lighting was just right to make for the smooth tones I was looking for.

With this shot, I am done with posting "dune" shots for a while. Well, unless I can find more that I actually like!

I've been going back over my portfolio recently as I am in the process of moving my site over to zenfolio to allow for print/frame fulfillment. During this process, I have come across a lot more shots I would not have really considered before.

So be expecting some random cruft on my photostream over the next few weeks!