Even with My Arms Open As Wide As Possible (Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve)

            Even with My Arms Open As Wide As Possible,
I would not be able to take in the world as my own
I would have to begin a journey by walking amongst the prairie grasses
Be with the wind as it blew them this way to that
Walk until I felt the sands beneath my feet
Climb higher until I reached a distant peak
I could then reach out to touch the skies and clouds
That is the story I will tell of this travel.

Another work of short poetry or prose to complement the image captured one afternoon in Great Sand Dunes National Park at the roadside pullout near the park entrance sign. This was looking to the north with as wide an angle view as I could get with this 24-120 mm Nikkor lens. Most the time in composing a wide angle view like this, I attempt to include more foreground and bring the horizon a little further up into the image. Here though, I went with a more balanced view since I was up a little higher along the roadside edge. The image the camera captured would then still have a sweeping view across the desert grasslands before coming to the horizon with the sand dunes of the national park and mountain peaks in the national preserve. By keeping the image more balance, I could also include that big sky view I had that afternoon. Those blue skies would also act as a color contrast to the more yellow and brown earth tones in the lower part of the image. I later worked with control points in DxO PhotoLab 3 and then made some adjustments to bring out the contrast, saturation and brightness I wanted for the final image.
   

Taken in: United States / Colorado / Liberty (show map)

Taken on: June 29, 2020

Tags:

Azimuth 0

Blue Skies

Canvas

Cleveland Peak

Colorado Great Sand Dunes & Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Crestone Group

Day 1

Desert Grassland

Desert Landscape

Dunes

DxO PhotoLab 3 Edited

Eastern Edge of the San Luis Valley

Free Verse Poetry

Grassland

Great Sand Dunes Area

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Landscape

Landscape - Scenery

Looking North

Mount Herard

Mountain Peak

Mountains

Mountains in Distance

Mountains off in Distance

Nature

Nikon D850

No People

Northern Sangre de Cristo Range

Outside

Partly Cloudy

Poems Used

Poetry and Prose

Portfolio

Project365

Rocky Mountains

Sand

Sand Dunes

Sangre de Cristo Range

Scenics - Nature

SnapBridge

Southern Rocky Mountains

Sunny

Tallest Sand Dunes in North America

Travel

Trees

Colorado

United States « less

Sets appears in: • Free Verse Poetry • Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve more » • Colorado • Colorado Great Sand Black Canyon • Canvas • Portfolio • 365 • Nature & Landscapes « less

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Camera: Nikon D850, f/6.3, 1/800 sec, 24mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D850
Lens:	24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0
Aperture:	f/6.3
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	24mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Scene Capture Type:	Landscape
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	NIKON D850 Ver.1.11
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