The Last Light

The Work

Every session at the Eureka Dunes ends the same way. The sun drops behind the Inyo Mountains, the shadow line climbs the dune face, and the ridge narrows to a single bright edge – the last surface still holding direct light. Then that goes too.

The Last Light was made in the final minutes of 02.19.2022 at 5:05pm evening on the last day of a 5 days expedition. I had been working the dunes since 6am that morning. By this point the camera was still set up from an earlier composition, the shadows had shifted, and what I saw was not what I had planned – it was what remained. A wedge of golden light, impossibly warm against the cooling shadow, crowning the ridge like something deliberate. Like something that knew it was ending.

I made 2 frames. The light held for approximately about 15 seconds. Then the ridge went dark and the field was silent.

This was the last frame I captured at the Eureka Dunes on that expedition.

The Pairing

The Last Light exists in direct conversation with Light Ascending – the first and last images of the Eureka Dunes body of work. If Light Ascending is the morning’s arrival, The Last Light is the evening’s departure. Together they describe the full arc of a day at the dunes, and the full arc of a body of work: beginning and ending, expectation and release.

Collectors who acquire both are acquiring a diptych – two images designed to be read together, whether hung side by side, on facing walls, or in separate rooms of the same home.

The Location

Eureka Dunes rise nearly 700 feet above the floor of the Eureka Valley in the remote northern reaches of Death Valley National Park – the tallest dune system in California. The field is reached via 45 miles of unpaved road. At sunset, the light crosses the valley from the west and strikes the east-facing dune slopes at a low angle, producing a warm golden crown along the uppermost ridge while the lower face falls into deep blue-grey shadow.

The contrast between the warm lit ridge and the cool shadow is most extreme in the last 1-2 minutes before the sun drops below the mountain line. This is the window in which The Last Light was captured – the narrowest possible margin of usable light.

The Edition

The Last Light is released as a strictly limited edition of 15 prints worldwide, offered in three sizes. Once the 15th print is sold, the image is permanently retired.

Every print is:
• Hand-signed and numbered on the recto by the artist
• Accompanied by a serialized Certificate of Authenticity with dual-hologram provenance
• Personally inspected before leaving the studio
• Registered in the Light & Shadows edition archive

Current edition status: Edition 13 of 15 available. 2 sold.

The Capture

The Print

Produced on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm – 100% cotton, acid-free, museum-grade – using archival carbon pigments rated for over 100 years of stability.

The warm tones in The Last Light – the amber-gold of the lit ridge transitioning into the cool blue-grey of the shadow – are among the most chromatically demanding passages in the collection. The Hahnemühle cotton rag holds this warm-to-cool gradient without colour crossover, which is the point where a lesser substrate would introduce a greenish or muddy cast in the transition zone. What you see in the print is what the dune looked like: warm where the light touched, cool where it didn’t, and a clean, clear boundary between.

Framing in hand-finished hardwood with museum glass is available on request. The artist recommends natural oak or walnut for this image  a warm-toned frame that extends the golden palette of the lit ridge.