Water acts as a lubricant and is key to mixing, setting, laying, and hardening concrete. The sand also enhances concrete's most favorable properties such as thermal expansion, compression strength, and tensile strength. The sand binds everything together and makes an artificial rock. Sand, the most common aggregate, is then added to the cement. To put it simply, concrete is made from cement mixing with water to form a paste that acts like glue the mixture needs an aggregate to be complete. Each element performs a function essential to making the material long-lasting and incredibly sturdy. The combination of sand, water, and cement make concrete. Its versatility appears in many forms of construction such as building columns and decks to residential driveways, home foundations, walls, and other additional forms of paving. I think we’re going to need a bigger wall.As the most widely used building material in the world, concrete relies on sand to make it strong and durable in its countless applications. Or maybe I’ll do 4 compositions arranged 2x2.perhaps 6 arranged 2x3.maybe even 9 arranged 3x3. I plan to compile some of these images of sand texture into a triptych - 3 compositions side-by-side or one on top of the other to form a beautiful wall art piece that brings the texture of the Kelso Sand Dunes indoors. They aren’t in-your-face like my more typical epic landscape photography, but their subtlety and near-abstractness is perfect for interior decorating. I personally like these types of compositions. The result is a multi-colored painting of sand and wind that even the finest artist couldn’t create.

This fact is evident all over the dunes where a strip of black sand will crown the top of a crest or line the valleys of sand ripples like a black highlighter drawn along their edge. It seems one of these types of sand is heavier than the other. The real interesting part comes in how the wind separates the black sand from the beige sand.

I presume the black sand comes from the volcanic rock of nearby cinder cones which has been eroded down to granules and transported by the wind onto these mammoth piles of sand. They are transient and temporary, a fact that makes photographing them all the more special.Īt the Kelso Sand Dunes in the Mojave National Preserve, you’ll find faint layers of black sand mixed in with the more common beige variety. And like an etch-a-sketch, each one of these sculptures is shaken clear and re-formed with passing time. It’s simply remarkable that this is what mother nature creates when she’s left alone. It’s nothing more than a side effect of a natural weather phenomenon. The most interesting thing about these ripples and textures is that they are formed entirely by wind alone. They’re like the grooves in your fingerprint - each one is different and yet they all look pretty much the same at first glance. The ripples are simultaneously perfectly ordered and utterly random. I also find that shooting in the square film format and using my camera handheld (as opposed to my usual tripod method) makes photographing this sand texture all the more fun. That’s why I did a lot of it on this trip. I think I could photograph the ripples in these sand dunes for days and never get bored.

Desert sand dexture