I recently realized that I’d never edited or shared some of the photos I took last December on a photo trip Bill & I took with Alain and Natalie Briot to New Mexico.  I posted some of my photos from Bosque del Apache shortly after I returned, but that was pretty much it. So here are some of my photos from White Sands National Monument near Alamagordo, New Mexico.

Our original plan was for an late afternoon/sunset shoot one day, followed by a sunrise shoot the next morning. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate on the morning shoot. The winds were strong enough that I never even took my camera out of my bag – or set up my tripod. Something about not wanting to get all that blowing sand into my gear.

So all my photos are from the afternoon shoot.

For me, the main attraction at White Sand National Monument was photographing the yucca plants. The yucca plants bloom in May & June – so instead of photographing them in full bloom, I photographed the dry stalks where the flowers had been months before. Someday I hope to photograph the yucca in full bloom. But even six months after they finish blooming – they are quite beautiful.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

This was the second of Alain & Natalie Briot’s photography workshops that Bill and I have attended. The workshops are always great fun – full of wonderful places to photograph – and lots of great conversations with other photographers. Each year, I seem to come back with a photo of Alain photographing in the field. Sometimes having a person in the photo helps give a sense of the scale of the landscape I was photographing in.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

The sunset that evening wasn’t particularly colorful. The cloud cover was fairly heavy – so much of the sky had very little color. I did capture a few moments of color along the ridge line at one point.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

White Sands National Monument was a fascinating place to photograph. I will definitely return there someday to do some more exploring and photographing.