The Corralejo dunes

The dunes are a protected natural park, a field of fine pale sand blown inland from the beaches and held between the road and the sea for about ten kilometres. The sand is light, almost white where it is dry, and it sits against water that goes from turquoise to deep blue — the contrast is the whole appeal.

Ridges are the thing to shoot, and they only exist when the sun is low. In the first and last hour the crests draw hard shadow lines across the field and footprints read as texture rather than mess; at midday the same ground looks flat and blank. Walk in a few hundred metres from the road to find untracked sand.

The eastern edge is beach: long, shallow and open, with the cone of the Isla de Lobos offshore and Lanzarote behind it on a clear day. That gives a second, cooler palette in the same session.

There is no shade and no water, so this is a short, sharp location rather than a two-hour one. It is a protected park: stay on the sand and off the vegetated hummocks, which hold the dunes together. Wind is normal, and blowing sand at ankle height is what makes the pictures move.