This collection of elegantly composed black-and-white images by one of New Mexico’s most accomplished photographers, celebrates the state’s captivating physical variety and enduring allure. With subject matter ranging from some of the state’s most iconic landforms—including the White Sands desert and Carlsbad Caverns—to the people who work the land, Varjabedian’s images pay homage to New Mexico’s ancient history and to the homely details of everyday life. In photographing his subjects, whether epic or mundane, Varjabedian seeks the moments when the light, shadow, composition, and other elements combine to express the beauty of the place. Marin Sardy’s wide-ranging essay provides historical and cultural contexts in which to understand Varjabedian’s work. Scholar-poet Jeanetta Calhoun Mish defines the particular quality of the artist’s imagery.

This collection of elegantly composed black-and-white images by one of New Mexico's most accomplished photographers, celebrates the state's captivating physical variety and enduring allure. With subject matter ranging from some of the state's most iconic landforms--including the White Sands desert and Carlsbad Caverns--to the people who work the land, Varjabedian's images pay homage to New Mexico's ancient history and to the homely details of everyday life. In photographing his subjects, whether epic or mundane, Varjabedian seeks the moments when the light, shadow, composition, and other elements combine to express the beauty of the place. Marin Sardy's wide-ranging essay provides historical and cultural contexts in which to understand Varjabedian's work. Scholar-poet Jeanetta Calhoun Mish defines the particular quality of the artist's imagery.

One of the West's most eloquent photographers shares his favorite images and his stories of how they came to be.

Visually focused, packed with cultural insight, and sized for portability, Guides for the Eyes celebrate the local traditions and visual vernacular that surrounds us. Operating at the intersection of art and anthropology, each edition in the series explores place through 100 of the most notable features of a region. Vivid photography and informative text provide insight into the significance of each topic, covering regional architecture, design, flora, fauna, food, crafts, folklore, landscape, and other facets of local identity and style. Ranging from the obvious to the obscure, these distinguishing elements define a locale as somewhere as opposed to anywhere. As one of the most unique and colorful regions of North America, New Mexico is the first subject of the series. Throughout thousands of years, the state s striking landscape has inspired the art, design and traditions of its three dominant cultures: Native American, Hispanic and Anglo/Western. These distinct groups continue to blend and evolve, infusing the rustic land with a compelling vibrancy, unrivaled in its beauty.

This morning I am contemplating how we humans, awkwardly tangled in dreams of salvation, struggle to lend meaning to a physical world that is most often brutally indifferent. It may be that the one thing of substantial power left to us is our own imagination. Thus begins the story of a road trip up the West Coast of North America; a journey which comes to a dramatic conclusion months later in Mexico. A unique look at the nature of prayer, the power of dreams, and the risks and rewards we all face imagining ourselves into the world, 'about art' is the memoir of one artist's quest to understand the life he has lived.

A memoir and novella highlighting the Santa Fe Fiesta tradition of burning in effigy Zozobra, or Old Man Gloom.

Varjabedian illuminates the dramatic cliffs and plains of Ghost Ranch, once the home of Georgia O'Keeffe.