White Dunes, Nambung National Park, Western Australia – Australia

We as humans have a tendency to think of the color of a thing as static and reliable when really it’s anything but. For instance, how many times have we said “the sky is blue” and taken it for granted that we were stating absolute, inviolable truth? In reality, the sky isn’t always blue at all. It can be grey and steely or frothy and purple. It can be many shades of orange, vermillion, crimson, or mauve depending on the time of day or the weather. That’s because color has a special relationship with light that allows it to be absolutely anything if the right set of circumstances materialize.

It isn’t just the sky that shows us how wonderfully changeable color can be either. Sand becomes the most wonderful stuff when it’s kissed by the right hint of sunshine and I got to experience that firsthand during a trip to Western Australia’s own Namburg National Park. White Gold was captured at sunset on a beautiful autumn day. I could hear the gentle song of the pristine waters behind me as I gazed out over the white sandy dunes. They seemed like they must roll on forever, rising and falling, graceful in their warm, dry elegance. Australia is famous for its rich, red earth inland… but here at the beach, the sand was so different — clean and bone white.

As the sun sank lower in the sky that day, the pure white dunes provided it with a wonderful canvas to play with. First they glowed fiercely, seeming paler than ever. Then as the light began to grow milder, the sun soaked the dunes in rays of pure gold. That golden color was so pure, and true, and real, it was hard to believe in that moment that those sands were ever any other color. There in that moment, I felt like I was looking at a beach made of pure gold dust – magic personified.