Dunewalkers, White Sands Nat'l Monument.

[amolitor]

I vote for the first one as well, contrail and all. Plenty of blacks in it. It's a white place, make it mostly white!

The picture struck me instantly as an original and distinctive take, and very lovely. It's a weird place, because it *does* look like snow. I spent some time there and took a pretty good picture once, and one of the things that makes the place photographically interesting is that it is visual ambiguous. It's hitting our 'Coooold!' buttons and our 'Hot! Hot!' buttons at the same time.

Embrace the ambiguity!

[Alan Klein]

When I zoomed in, I noticed the footprints in the sand.  Could you crop your picture also to zoom in on these and the two people.  It might make a more interesting picture.

[Misirlou]

I vote for the first one as well, contrail and all. Plenty of blacks in it. It's a white place, make it mostly white!

The picture struck me instantly as an original and distinctive take, and very lovely. It's a weird place, because it *does* look like snow. I spent some time there and took a pretty good picture once, and one of the things that makes the place photographically interesting is that it is visual ambiguous. It's hitting our 'Coooold!' buttons and our 'Hot! Hot!' buttons at the same time.

Embrace the ambiguity!

You should see it on one of those rare occasions when it's cloudy. Very, very strange. I walked deep into the dunes one time right after a rain storm: An experience I won't forget. I was carrying a couple of medium format film cameras, and quickly exhausted my film supply.

[Mjollnir]

Thanks, one and all.

I'm going to rework the lighter version for no contrails and clean up the sand just a bit for noise.

The oddest thing from WSNM was that almost all my shots, at mid day, wide open aperture, had noise in the sand.

[Rob C]

Sorry to be the odd one out - not really - but I think the darker reworking was better. As amolitor says, it hits both hot and cold motivators at the same time, obviously the spur to my question about how one could tell which was which, if not already familiar with the area from countless stock catalogues. Okay, that the mountains have no snow cover one could employ as guide, but bear in mind that my question was obviously raised in fun. It looks no less white sands for being darker - just strikes me as better detailed.

Rob C