New Mexico in Low Light

New Mexico is called The Land of Enchantment but it could just as easily be called The Land of Amazing Light. I can see now why photographers and artists come here to pursue their creative muses--the light goes from pale lemony to deep tangerine to milky blue and then back again in the course of a day. The air is clear and the vistas are vast. And then there are the places where the desert meets the mountains. It's one giant inspiration of light.

Here are just a tiny few of the digital images I've shot this week in New Mexico's low light--early and late in the day.

Pintails at dawn over Bosque del Apache NWR.

At dawn the birders and photographers gather on the Flight Deck for the morning fly out of the cranes and waterfowl.

A pre-dawn blizzard of snow geese.

Cranes and waterfowl darken the dawn sky at Bosque.

Phragmites is an invasive scourge, but its heads look feathery in the afternoon sunlight.

Sunset uses the same pink paintbrush on the desert and the mountains.

A drake pintail in the predawn glow.

Cranes are still flying well after sunset.

A Chihuahuan raven croaks at its flockmates.

Coots a half hour before first light.

The morning sun peeks through a notch in the rim of Water Canyon.

Pintails over pink clouds at Bosque.


Gleaming wires near El Salto del Rey.

A tangerine sunset from Arroyo Seco.