New Delhi, Nov. 7 -- "You're going to say it again, aren't you," my son said as he drove us from Santa Fe to Albuquerque airport. I sighed.

There is something simply magical about the light in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its luminous intensity makes everything vividly hyper-real. Cinematic. Razor sharp. Perhaps it is the fact that it is a city embedded in a desert, with its typical hot, dry atmosphere. Or perhaps it is New Mexico's clear, open sky, miles and miles of it. Everything looks high definition.

"Well," I said, "I'm never going to forget the quality of this light and the drama of these clouds." He laughed. Then, unexpectedly, "Well, neither am I. And not just because you've said this about a hundred times in six days."

From the mome...