Today is the day that my trip to Santa Fe has begun. It was a long day, due to mechanical problems with the plane at the airport in Newark, which led to delays that made me miss my connecting flight in Dallas. Fortunately, they got me on another plane out of Dallas to Santa Fe a couple hours later, and as we approached the Santa Fe airport, these thick clouds are what I was seeing out of my window.
I’ve long had a fascination with the clouds and the sky in New Mexico, dating back to a summer stay in 1989, to various visits to Santa Fe over the years. There seems to be a sense of drama in the sky that’s not as common out east. This next photo isn’t as dramatic as what I’ve seen in the past, but it was my first look upon landing at the Santa Fe airport.
I think one aspect of the scenery and the sky out here is that one can often get a view that includes vast distances, as opposed to the East Coast where there’s so much more congestion. This view above is a perfect example: I’m standing on the runway of the Santa Fe airport and there’s no man-made structures between me and those mountains that are who-knows-how-many-miles away. It’s a sense of vastness that I love.
I was wondering if there was a more specific reason why the clouds seem more dramatic in New Mexico, and a little A.I. research gives me the following explanations: the elevation in New Mexico, anywhere from 4,000 – 7,000 feet above sea level, provides a thinner, drier air which increases visibility, giving the clouds a sharper definition against the sky. Another A.I. answer which backs up my thought above is that the wide open landscapes via deserts, mesas, and plains, makes the sky feel huge, with very few trees or tall buildings to block the view.
One other explanation is that the dry air contains little moisture or pollution, so the sunlight is bright and unfiltered, which makes the whites and grays of the clouds visually pop even more dramatically against the deep blue sky. Georgia O’Keeffe and Angel Adams are two famous artists who were drawn to New Mexico for the beauty of the sky and landscape.
