Hidalgo Corral | New Mexico

In January this year James and I passed a weathered corral in Hidalgo county, New Mexico. We were traveling from Silver City (home of ‘Billy The Kid’) to one of the most beautiful towns in the world, Sedona in Arizona. I was excited to add some great photographs of the southwest of the United States. Being on a tight time frame, we only made few stops along the way. Some places were absolutely stunning and were too good miss. This little corral near Lordsburg was one of them.

Driving Through Hidalgo County Is Like Driving Through A Western Movie

I feel incredibly lucky to have married a New Mexican. Before I married James I hadn’t even heard of New Mexico. Now it is a place I have come to love very much. As a photographer it is breathtaking, and a great place to play with different styles of photography. When you drive through Hidalgo County you feel like you are driving through a Western Movie.

One moment you are looking at snow capped mountains and the next you are driving through wide open plains that have scattered corrals and farmland. The towns and areas you drive through in Hidalgo County are full of history. You can see it in the old houses and buildings that you pass. I am also very lucky that my father in law has a great passion for history of New Mexico. I love hearing about the adventures he has been on and what he has learned. It adds a richness to the landscape that I might not otherwise have come to understand.

I composed this image to capture the corral with the mountains in the background. We had just driven across the front of the mountains and I wanted to get them in the frame. It was quite a hazy day, so I had to add a lot of clarity to the photograph in Adobe Lightroom. This made the mountains in the background clearer and look like they did when I was standing there.

This part of the United States is blanketed with soft pastel colours, unlike Sedona with it’s vivid red rocks. I like the contrast in the landscape between where we started our journey and where we were going.