Aaron Lewis, 1st Place Animals Wildlife photography is my passion. I’m proud to be able to share with people how brilliant and sublime nature can be in New Mexico. Late last winter I traveled to the Ladd S Gordon Waterfowl Complex where I spent the evening photographing waterfowl. Walking back to my vehicle as the sun was setting, I found this lone sandhill crane standing in a field basking in the last minutes of light in the day. I thought it was peculiar that it hadn’t flown out to roost in the nearby marsh, where other cranes had been flying in for the last hour. Instead, it was staring off to the southwest as if watching the winter sunset. I moved into the tree line to watch and captured what made for a calming memory.