Sand Dunes Panorama
One of my favorite photographers always says that you should make an image black and white when there is no color in the photo. But I think that sometimes the best black and white images are full of color. A couple of days before Thanksgiving we headed over to the Sand Dunes Swimming Pool near Hooper and stopped by the Great Sand Dunes on the way for some sunset photography. The image below is a 52-megapixel stitched panorama of 5 photos captured just as the sun was hitting the horizon to the southwest. The colors in the sky and clouds and the peaks catching the last rays of the sun were simply stunning.
After creating this image, I realized that it might also make a good black and white photo, so I converted the image to black and white and produced the next image.
While the colors in this photo of the Great Sand Dunes were absolutely stunning, to me the black and white image is more powerful and has more of a sense of scale and drama in the landscape. When I look at it, I almost feel like I am flying toward the mountains over the dunes. Which one do you prefer?