The deeper into winter we get the more the colors go away. The vibrant palette of summer has been replaced with the drab, dead looking shades of winter. The colors are not really gone, they’ve just become dormant. Walk around your neighborhood and look closely at the various bushes and shrubbery and notice how the stalks of the plants still have much of their color left. Check out the guys house just down the block who has just painted it in the neon colors of his favorite football team and pray that his team loses so he’ll change it back. Watch for the winter birds, maybe you’ll see the bright red of a cardinal or the colors of a Cedar Waxwing eating berries that are still bright and shiny. Color is still here, you just have to seek it out.

If you’re down in here in Santa Fe the colors are a different collection. This part of the Southwest has decided on a pastel range of earth tones that don’t seem all that colorful at first glance, but wait a little while. The light will begin to change and suddenly these shades take on a hue that is a perfect choice for this time of year with a uniqueness that you can only find here. Muted colors that blend together in a perfect harmony of shades and intensities. And they do it in a very pleasing way. The great bold shapes of the buildings create wonderful palettes of color that are even more distinctive by their size. You are surrounded by amazing shapes, planes and shadows that each have their own colors and it is a mix and match of wonderful shades that make Santa Fe such a wonderful place.

Even the freezing cold of a high desert winter can’t subdue these shades of Deep Winter Color.