DUNES © 1983

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, FL

After learning about the beautiful dunes in the Florida Panhandle, I was excited to visit and photograph them. When I arrived in Port St. Joe, the weather was overcast. Every day for a week, I returned to the dunes, set up my camera, and waited for the light to be just right, but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. Finally, on my last day, just an hour before we were ready to pack up and leave, the sun briefly broke through the clouds, just long enough for me to shoot two pieces of film. Originally, this photograph was in color and was one of my best-selling pieces at art festivals. People loved the soft colors and often focused on the sun. However, once I converted it to black-and-white, the focus shifted, and the image had a completely different, more powerful impact on the viewer; instead of focusing on one aspect of the image, they were able to take in the complexity of the scene with sky, sand, and water, seamlessly melding into a unified whole. To date, this is my most recognizable and sought-after black-and-white photograph. This photograph is hand-printed in Clyde’s darkroom on fiber-based paper, selenium toned, then mounted and matted to current archival standards. The photograph is a limited edition and signed by Clyde. Disclaimer – Cropping, contrast, and image density may vary. To learn more about the darkroom printing process, click here.