Exploring Sand Dunes with Charlie Kruschek

Sand dunes are one of my favorite landscapes to photograph. The rapid change of appearance and balance of light and shadow makes these compositions challenging, yet incredibly rewarding. Capturing them effectively requires more than just pointing your camera and simple framing. Color, light, lens choice, and composition play a crucial role in creating compelling images. Let’s dive into the best techniques for photographing sand dunes, looking into lens selection, valuable accessories that assist in the process, composition hunting, and more.

To start, it’s important to prioritize the best available light for sand dunes. Unlike forests, cityscapes, studios and more, sand dunes are one of the most reliable ecosystems for specifically timed light. The unique aspect of these scenes is the lack of natural overhead diffusers. Although clouds may assist in softening sunlight, dunes are completely exposed to the sun from the moment it rises, to the moment it sets. That being said, it’s more important than ever to prioritize the best hours of natural light. Golden hour - the first few hours of sunrise or the last few hours before sunset - are optimal. Rather than chasing just highlights, we also want to be chasing shadows. During the midday hours, harsh overhead sunlight can flatten the dunes, making them look less dimensional and less dynamic. However, if the sky is cloudy or there’s a strong wind kicking up sand, midday can sometimes work in your favor for creating moodier, more atmospheric shots.

Make sure to plan ahead for these conditions, especially the wind. Having a sturdy tripod goes a long way with supporting your camera so you can slow down your shutter speed if clouds are overhead or it’s windy. Tripods like the Epoch or Specialist from ProMaster are great options for this, given their robust build quality and rigid leg joints. With dunes, I never leave home without at least one or the other. It’s proven to pay off every single time.

When you’re dealing with less than ideal conditions, such as clear skies or low wind, don’t give up! I’ve found that some of my favorite shots have been during a time which I completely ignored composing the sky in my scene and simply zoomed in for a more intimate shot. That brings me to my next piece of advice: experiment with different lenses. Oftentimes when we think of landscape photography, we think of wide angle lenses, such as 16-35s, 12-24s, etc. For sand dunes, I prefer telephotos. I find that having extra zoom offers a unique opportunity to compress multiple layers of light and find contrast in areas that otherwise may have been left behind. These kinds of shots may take in hundreds of feet of depth, however with the aforementioned compression, it “flattens” everything and makes it look much more special than what our eyes see.

In this shot below, I used my Tamron 28-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di III RXD and zoomed all the way into 200mm. What drew me to this scene was the clash of dark shadows and thin highlights along the ridges of each dune. The symmetry of each layer created a style of depth that felt elegant, yet mysterious to view. If you look at the sky as well, the lack of clouds made the top portion much more boring in color, however with a brief change to black and white, the brighter tones balanced out the dark shadows in the lower portion of the frame. This technique works especially well at sunrise or sunset when the contrast between highlights and shadows is strongest. This balance is key with dunes, and sometimes a black and white conversion can help achieve this better than color can.

If you choose to not use a telephoto lens, a wide-angle can still achieve some great images. Contrary to zooming in and finding intimate, more compressed scenes, wide angle shots work best when you have a good foreground element that can draw the eye of the viewer in and across your image. Think of it like a flow chart. Where do you “start” and where do you want your image to “end”? Having these points in mind can help create a complete composition, and with dunes, one element that can help with this are your golden hour shadows. Some dunes have basins to work with, others have ridges, but the element that all of these have in common are shadows. If you can work the shadows to your advantage, you can find a balanced scene from top to bottom.

A personal flair that I like to incorporate with my scenes is switching to a portrait orientation for my images. The added height combined with a wide angle lens offers a unique distortion that helps increase the perspective of your image. To have my camera remain balanced when on top of a tripod shooting vertical, I always use an L-Bracket. Not only does this protect the bottom and side of my camera, it also helps keep my camera balanced on top of my tripod rather than off to the side. Here is one shot from Death Valley’s basin that has good start and finish points.

Earlier, I mentioned the importance of intimate shots when the weather may not be cooperating. Under these circumstances, you can look for interesting textures and patterns. It’s not uncommon that untouched sand will create unique patterns for shadows, especially during early morning light. With Epoch, the four-way head makes it incredibly easy to angle your camera down and align your composition up with repeated patterns and lines.

Combining these techniques can make for some of the most impactful and complete compositions you can find. Shortly after sunrise or just before sunset, when light impacts shadows the most, search for far out dunes combined with patterns closer to your camera. These can be used as leading lines for further out subjects. From a standpoint of settings, shooting with a stopped down aperture in the range of f/8-11 can help increase your sharpness as well as increase the amount of your image that’s in focus. Again, the importance of a tripod for this cannot be overstated due to the flexibility that it allows for your shutter speed as well as keeping your ISO at a low sensitivity. Combine all of these technical methods with a composition including starting and finishing points and you are well on your way to achieving images like this.

Sand dunes offer some of the most extraordinary moments of light and compositions you can find. When you understand how to use a variation of lenses for compression, drama, depth, and intimate details for storytelling, you can create more dynamic and visually compelling images that will be wall-hangers in your portfolio. The key is to be patient, observe the light, and experiment. Every dune field is unique, and with the right approach, you can capture images that feel fresh, powerful, and timeless.