"Northern New Mexico is a special place. When you’re here, you know where you are. Because no place else in the world is like this place."
- Lyle Lovett

In August of 2021, through a series of synchronicities and coincidences (my favorite things!), Santa Fe became my home. Northern New Mexico has long been my muse, though. The images in this gallery are a sampling of some of my favorites over the years, in roughly chronological order from 1992 to now.

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A friend of mine said he was looking at my photographs one day, and he kept hearing the whisper of a question: "What is behind all this?"

I hear that whisper, too.

In another life, long ago, I lived by a river. I loved my family, and my people. I knew everyone in our community, and I loved the simple life we led. More than anything else, though, I loved the sky. I would sit and watch the clouds dance above the mountains for hours on end. Each sunset filled me with peace beyond understanding. The movement of the stars across the sky, rimmed by the cliffs, felt like a love song – just for me.

Some thought I was strange. Touched perhaps. And perhaps I was. Perhaps I still am. I still love the sky. Especially the New Mexico sky. The monsoon thunderclouds, the black silhouettes of trees against the cloudless winter sky, red rocks against cobalt blue… It all speaks to me in a language I have forgotten, yet still understand. Every day I listen to the music of the sky I feel connected to all that is – to all that has ever been, and I remember who I am.

They say a man should not love the moon too much, yet the nights when the full moon’s reflected light is strong enough to cast crisp shadows makes me smile a smile that feels like a secret even to me. Why does the shape of the waxing crescent moon feel so right to me? Some people feel at home nestled amongst the infinite pines. Not me. Why does it always feel worth the effort to climb to the top of a cliff or a mesa to take in the near omniscient 100-mile view reserved for hawks? Why do storm clouds make me so happy? The light that falls from the sky constantly changes everything. No matter how many times I drive the same road, it’s never the same. Local petroglyphs (no-one knows how old) remind me the sun’s path is a spiral that never repeats. Each day is new. The dance of earth and sky reminds me… all is well.

– Jean ‘Gino’ Miele, December 30, 2022

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