Great Sand Dunes ..or is it Stan Dunes?

After a couple emails from Stan, we headed down to the dunes on Thursday. What a place it is! We met a ranger named Patrick who was extremely helpful with some potential late day/sunset areas on the south end, so off we went. It was a little over 3 miles in and the wind was unbelievable. I had sand in my eyes until Saturday, got sand in my lens, in one of my camera buttons and just about anywhere else you can image. Still, it was an awesome experience. This first image is the one I liked best. I purposely underexposed it and used a little levels in PS to darken some unwanted things in the background...other than that and some sharpening, no other editing. C&C always welcome.

Thanks,

#2

#3 I like the way the wind makes the circles in this one.

Wow, I really like the first one. I would personally try to play with side crops on that one, maybe a right crop to achieve a square format. Thanks for sharing.

Those first two are superb!

On #1, I can barely see the crest of the dune arcing downward and to the left from the top. Any way you can lighten that crestline just a tad? That line really does help make this one so interesting.

The dune crest of #2 is lovely and graceful. Like a symphony in sand (..and you may steal that title if you wish ).
I can't even imagine hiking 3 miles on sand dunes, much less in the wind! I'm glad that your efforts paid off so very well.

It's a tough hike but your images are great Jack. I managed to scratch a lens one time with sand under the lens cap.

#1 is great, my only nit is I wish there was a little more head room above the top of the dune.

What John said!

The first two are really excellent. Love the play of shadows and light. I agree with Jody in that a little more headroom on #1 would give the dune a little more room to breathe in the composition.

First two are really nice. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the comments so far everyone, much appreciated. Jody, for the close crop on the top, there was some distracting background and that was the only way to exclude it but I agree a little more space would have helped. John, I tried doing a dodge on the left crestline but I'm not getting a real good result...have you got any suggestions for how to bring it up without making the background lighter?

Great title
That first shot is absolutely awesome, Jack!! Second one aint far behind. Im so glad you got some great shots, I knew Patrick would be able to point you in the right direction.
Jack, a luminosity mask would work fine on the first shot for that line, although i dont think it needs any lightnening personally.

Jack,
When I imported the image into PS to check it out, I noticed that it didn't have a color space.
When I tagged it with an sRGB color space, the crestline became more visible.

I wonder if I'm not editing my images properly. Usually just before I save the image in PS, I convert profile to sRGB, then do the save for web. Is that the correct way?

Save for Web can strip the color space and EXIF data out of an image in order to try and save more room for image pixels.
I never use it, preferring to use the plain ol' 'Save as...' feature. Have never lost a color space or EXIF data since.

Great drama in 1 & 2! Nice work.

#1 is awesome... a little bit more space on the top will be awesome too. But the light and shadows as it is, are fantastic. Beautiful job jack...they are called the Stan dunes..I agree....

Love #s 1 and 2!!