My wife and I first visited White Sands National Monument - not to be confused with the White Sands Missile Range - in late March 2005 during a daytrip to Alamogordo, Ruidoso, and Roswell, but spent less than an hour out in the dunes and getting only a few photographs due to high winds that blew up a massive sandstorm, which not only obscured much of the distant scenery but made it hazardous for the camera (which I had to keep wrapped in a towel) and also quite painful since the sand blasted any exposed skin.
However, I was very impressed with what I did see, so the next year we made White Sands a major stop on the Photo Odyssey to allow us enough time we could wait out any similar storms should they have occurred. Fortunately though, this time we arrived the day after such a sandstorm (high winds are not rare in the area) and were favored for the week we were there with excellent weather that resulted in a number of photos I'm happy to have shot. White Sands is a unique and awesome place.
The challenge to me was in getting some variety to the look of what I shot there. I mean, just how many ways can one photograph piles of white sand and not have the images all look the same?
The only downside to White Sands was the National Park Service didn’t open the gates until well after sunrise, which made it impossible to photograph there in early light, one of my favorite times of the day to shoot. This might not have been a problem during the winter with its later sunrises, but they did offer to let me in early at a cost of $50/hour to cover the expense of the ranger coming in early to open the gate for me, which I turned down since I was getting enough good sunset shots to make me happy.
However, if you are a pro and have a market for your imagery (or simply have more money than you know what to do with :-), paying to get in early would be an option to consider. This not only gets you in for the morning golden light but also gets you in before the dunes are tracked up with a lot of footprints from the day’s visitors, which was sometimes a problem by sunset, especially on the weekend when more people were there.
Also, since the dunes are surrounded by military facilities, the nearest place the general public can stay overnight is in Alamogordo, 15 miles (24 km) away. This isn’t a long drive and the road is excellent, but if one goes out to the dunes more than once a day, the drive becomes tedious.
Fortunately, before I started wandering around the dunes I had seen notices about how easy it is to get disoriented and lost on foot in the dunes, so I was very aware of my surroundings while hiking and kept myself oriented by observing the mountains around the dunes and using them as directional landmarks so I could always find my way back to the car. Believe me when I say you don’t have to walk far into the dunes to lose track of where you parked. Also, be sure to take water with you.
And here’s something I learned the hard way - to save yourself a wasted drive, I recommend checking the monument’s web site on a daily basis ([ http://www.nps.gov/whsa/ ), because the monument is periodically closed during its normal hours of operation due to missile tests and they post this information online. Twice during the week we were there, the monument’s opening was delayed for two hours because of this. It wasn’t a problem for me since I wasn’t shooting early light anyway, but it could have been a problem if I’d been paying to get in early.
Otherwise, White Sands is an absolutely incredible and surreal place to shoot photographs and I highly recommend it.
