USA Sunset Lookout at Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

As I mentioned in my Great Sand Dunes National Park post, the late afternoon light casts beautiful shadows on the dunes. It can be difficult to capture this scene from inside the park, however, because the best framing (IMO) includes both the dunes and the stunning Sangre de Cristos and in order to capture this you'll have to put some distance between yourself and the dunes. Thus, I thought it would be helpful to create this separate spot specific to sunsets.

For a shot like this one, you'll want a telephoto lens to compress the scene and achieve a good ratio of dunes to mountains to sky. This one was shot at 200mm on a full frame camera, but anything from 150mm to 250mm is the sweet spot. If the sky is really powerful, maybe zoom out a bit to include more of it in the frame. It should go without saying that a tripod will definitely be necessary to get the framing perfect. As far as timing goes, if you wait until too close to sunset, the dunes will become completely dark. That's fine if that's what you're going for and are emphasizing a brilliant sky in your framing, but it's something to keep in mind when planning your trip. I shot this about an hour before sunset in late October. If you're feeling creative and don't mind taking some liberties, you might want to take one shot around this time and then take another shot later during sunset to get a more brilliant sky and then blend the two in post.

I scouted a few locations in the area to try to find the best spot for this type of sunset shot, and I think the best is at the Great Sand Dune Oasis that's just outside the park entrance sign. If you go to the north edge of the parking lot and walk up to the little mound on the back right side of the building, you can shoot over the cars/telephone poles/etc. If this spot doesn't work out for whatever reason, you can head just past the park entrance sign and stop at the pullout on the west side of the road. It's at a slightly lower elevation, so I don't like the framing quite as much, but it's a great backup spot and you might actually prefer that perspective.