Has luck abandoned me? Again? I wonder this when I’m in my tent alone watching another rainy day end without a sunset, when high winds whip the sand dunes into a fury, when days of rain flood the ice caves I have flown across an ocean to see, when it is cold (which is always).  

But relentless patience is rewarded.  Inevitably after a string of bad luck or near misses, the light breaks through, the clouds shift, or I find something astonishing, like coyote tracks winding through sand dunes.  For a few short minutes I am a flurry of activity, moving quickly with tripod in hand to shoot as many compositions as possible.  And then it is over.  The light fades; the conditions change.  I don’t know when the next moment will come.  But I want to be there for it.

David Bassett

Denver, 2014