It's a beautiful photo, Tom, but I always look for the image within the image (that way I get more for my money, so to speak), so just for s**ts and giggles I pulled a copy and cropped the top 20% off. The result doesn't tell us it's a beach; it tells us it's otherworldly. I dig 'em both.
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Tom - You have beautifully captured the textures and subtle contrasts of the wind-blown sand. SImilar to what Nik notes, my eye was drawn to the water and distant land; cropping the image to eliminate them keeps the eye on the beautiful undulations of the sand. Thad