Very pretty indeed. I wish I could make my brain stop shouting “It’s fake/CGI/a painting!” Some things are just too perfect.
I’ve frozen my ass off elk hunting at 10,000 feet and 25 below zero in New Mexico. It certainly met none of those criteria at the time. But it was beautiful.
I love the photo!
Having visited the southwest a few times, personally, I don’t think that hot/dry/treeless is such a bad thing, actually. I actually think the desert is quite lovely. When I saw that some homeowners in Vegas were trying to grow lawns, I thought, “Why bother? Just enjoy what you have here”. 
You see that really skinny balloon over on the right? What’s going on with that? Why isn’t it all nice and fat like the others?
That is a GREAT picture. I am now officially jealous.
If you look at the list of alterations he made, you’ll realize that it is fake/CGI. Okay, it’s not entirely fake, but it wouldn’t be up to journalistic standards either.
Well, it wouldn’t be too far off either. Most of the corrections made are pretty basic. The only one I would consider journalistically suspect is the cloning of minor distractions. Some of the color work is a bit more aggressive than normal, but a typical photojournalist will use cropping, levels (or curves), color balancing, noise reduction, and selective dodging and burning on most photos.