Last April, we arrived at the entrance of White Sands National Park in the dark. A brisk and officious ranger met us at the gate to check our paperwork and gave us a run-down of our filming permit.
We got to work as the night sky slowly brightened from inky darkness to the softest pastel glow.
We broke midday to get out of the heat and to wait for the light. As the sun began to set, and the world around us turned back into pastel softness, I was reminded of the James Turrell installations that I had seen at MASS Moca and the De Young in San Francisco. His art focuses on the nature of light. As the domed sky above me slowly shifted from pale blues, yellows, and pinks it returned to the deep indigo we saw in the morning and I felt like I was in a Turrell exhibit on a magnificent scale.
The film hasn’t come out yet, but when it does I hope that we will have captured some of the light magic we experienced at White Sands.