The photograph offered here was shown at The Museum of Modern Art in 1962 in the retrospective Ernst Haas: Color Photography, curated by John Szarkowski. While the exhibition’s emphasis was on Haas’ color photographs, Szarkowski included a small selection of black-and-white works. As is characteristic of MoMA’s exhibition style in the 1950s and 1960s, this photograph is on a thick flush-mount which gives it a commanding presence on the wall.

Whether working in color or black-and-white, in the natural world, on movie sets, or on the road, Haas was ever sensitive to the expressive capabilities of light. In this image he has captured the drama of sunlight breaking through the clouds over the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico.