7 Locations for Wildflower Photography in New Mexico
Wildflowers were what first inspired me to pick up a camera and learn how to use it. Although I’ve branched out into different subjects since then, now broadly covering natural history and conservation through my lens, wildflower photography still enchants me and is often the subject I come back to when I need a creative reboot.
I love photographing wildflowers in their environment to show them in their habitat and give an idea of how they have adapted to the places they live. When I am searching for places to photograph wildflowers, I am not only looking for locations that have lots of interesting wildflowers of different species for close-ups, but also open landscapes with interesting backdrops – be that a stormy sky, mountains in the background, or the edge of a forest.
Over years of searching for great wildflower photography locations in New Mexico, the following 7 places have yielded some of my favorite images and experiences. Each location allows for both close up/macro photography opportunities and also dramatic scenic landscapes to capture spectacular bloom displays or environmental portraits of the flowers. While they may be a be a good drive from your home or airbnb in New Mexico, these locations are easy to access by car so you won’t have to limit the amount of camera gear you bring with you to what fits in your backpack. These locations are also close enough to roads and parking lots that you can run back to your car if you forget something, which inevitably, I always do.
Santa Fe Ski
Best Season: High Summer (late June - early August)
Distance from Santa Fe: 45 min
Drive up to the ski basin where the meadows and forests around the parking lot yield many opportunities for wildflower photography. Prepare your gear for close up photography and landscapes using the edge of the forest as a background. Follow the creek for different species. A stellar spot with black-eyed Susans, irises, sneezeweed, harebells, and much more is known locally as Chris’s Meadow. Do some research (in my wildflower hiking guide book, for example), and you can find where, exactly, Chris’s Meadow is located.
Panchuela Campground
Best Season: High Summer (late June - early August)
Distance from Santa Fe: 75 min
From the parking lot of this camping area, a steep but short hike down to the creek and the surrounding meadows and forests yields an ideal location for wildflower photography. Bright blue columbine, shooting stars, asters, wild rose and many more can be found here. It’s also one of my favorite campgrounds, so spend the night, but go during the week, as others have caught on to this place as well.
Lybrook Badlands
Best Season: Spring (May)
Distance from Santa Fe: 2.5 hours
I’ll start by saying that you’ll need to work for your photography at this location. However, I’m including it because the landscape is so ethereal and surreal, even if you get there and there are no wildflowers, there’s still so much to photograph.
The location blooms with only when there’s been some winter snow and spring rain. Check the annual precipitation reports for NW New Mexico before going. In a good year, the alluvial flats will be blanketed in sego lilies among interesting soil patterns to fill your frame. Mud hills and rock formations make for interesting backgrounds to western wallflower and lupines. Rare species of aster pop up on tops of mud cracked hills with hoodoo backgrounds. Several other rare wildflowers are found here as well.
You’ll need an adventurous spirit to explore this location as the road conditions and even number and direction of the roads constantly changes with new oil and gas development. It’s never been the same place twice on my visits. Do not go if it’s rained recently as the mud will clamp onto your tires like cement, creating for a dangerous and time consuming exit. Download your Google map before you go as cell phone service fades the deeper into these badlands you get. The deeper in you go, though, the better this scenery gets. Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you.
The Grasslands
Best Season: Spring
Distance from Santa Fe: 2.45 hours
You’ve probably never thought of the Kiowa Grasslands of eastern New Mexico as a wildflower destination. But here the flowers bloom earlier than the rest of the state, as do the wild and dramatic storms. Spring wildflowers include penstemons, cactus, paintbrush, delphiniums, and many others — often in large numbers. With a backdrop of a dramatic stormy sky, puffy white clouds, or late afternoon rainbows, the short grass prairie offers many photographic opportunities. Two of my favorite places include the plains around Wagon Mound off I-25 and the flats above Mills Canyon in the Kiowa National Grasslands. What’s wonderful about the storms here is that you can see them coming across the plains in time to take cover, or prepare for a chase if you are into that.
Valle Caldera National Preserve
Best Season: High Summer
Distance from Santa Fe: 1.5 hours
When the penstemons are in full bloom around the visitor’s center in July, this is one of my favorite, easily accessible locations. Gunnison’s Prairie Dogs live here in a large dog town. Throughout the summer, lots of dog kids will be running through the wildflowers, giving you two fun subjects to photograph. The only issue with this location is that the open hours of the Preserve do not include sunrise and sunset hours. You can get around this issue by parking in a pull off on HWY 4 and walking in or making the most of the daytime lighting. See what you can do with the trending high-key midday, pure blue sky images. Or, going on an overcast day will give you nice soft lighting for wildflower close ups and intimate landscapes with the Prairie Dogs.
Lookout Mountain
Best Season: High Summer (late June - early August)
Distance from Santa Fe: 3 hours
Take the Gondola at Ski Apache up to the top of the mountain for a short and easy walk to Lookout Peak where you’ll find a plethora of wildflower species that only exist above treeline. Dwarf deathcamas, arctic gentian, alpine primroses, and many more. It’s the furthest south alpine above treeline giving it a special vibe. Go early in the day as monsoonal storms start by noon. I’ve had far too many hair raising encounters with lightening and golf ball sized hail on these mountains and suggest you try not to repeat my experience. There are apps that tell you how close the lightening is – download those before you go. While I did meet some really interesting people waiting out life-threatening storms in a shack at the top, it did stymie my photoshoot.
Valle Vidal
Best Season: Early Summer (June)
Distance from Santa Fe: 3 hours
A little visited and remote area of northern New Mexico with large meadows, flowing streams, and interesting landscape features. In June the meadows can fill with Rocky Mountain iris and golden pea, creating that super bloom effect that is so fun to photograph. This location has two campgrounds with limited infrastructure (like pit toilets and that’s it). Bring everything you need for camping and stay long enough to capture at least one sunset and one sunrise.
