Dune 41 — The Supplicant, Namib Desert

At the base of Dune 41, a human figure stands so small against the 170-meter face that the eye has to search to find them — and when it does, the dune's scale becomes suddenly and fully legible, the figure serving as the measure by which everything else in the frame must be recalibrated. Greg titled this image "The Supplicant" — the posture of the figure, slightly bowed forward at the base of the dune in the early morning heat, suggests either reverence or surrender, and perhaps both. The scene was captured in the first minutes of direct sunlight, the contrast between the lit face and the shadow side at maximum, the figure caught in a thin band of light at the dune's base. The Namib does not offer many opportunities to feel small.