LIGHTNING OVER CERRO CUATE, NEW MEXICO   Photograph by Jory Vander Galien
Courtesy of the Photographer 

Jory Vander Galien is my new assistant. He’s a good photographer and an interesting guy, currently an undergraduate in the photography program at the University of New Mexico. I met up with Jory the other day at a coffee shop in Albuquerque to discuss an upcoming photography workshop at Eloquent Light Photography Workshops we will be working on, and to talk about the progress of his thesis, Desperate Lands, on which I am privately mentoring him. As this is Jory’s last term at the university, our conversation turned to his plans after graduation. Under the spell of caffeine, he listed in a rapid-fire way some of his ambitions. Besides working with me in the future on various projects, he hopes to publish a book of his own work someday and wants to begin making contact with publishers. As much as I admire Jory’s photographs, I probably admire his enthusiasm for photography even more. Publishing a book of one’s photography  is an incredibly magical and career/life affirming experience.  A book can provide a photographer a passport to the larger photography scene; exhibitions, talks, gallery walks, book signings, and press reviews and much more, often happen as the result of publishing a book of one’s work.

As I was driving home that day, my mind wandered just a little, back to the magical time when I published my first book, En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico, with the University of New Mexico Press. A series of amazing but complicated events conspired to make the book possible, from being introduced to my first agent, Clark Kimball, to meeting and eventually working with award-winning author Michael Wallis (who has not only written a number of fine books but is also the voice of Sheriff in the animated film Cars), to being offered my first publishing contract by Beth Hadas, then director of UNM Press (thanks Beth!), to even more excitement when the book was actually published,  in 1994.

En Divina Luz was a complicated book and it took a lot of hard work. I had stumbled across a morada one day when I was out following the light, my term for a walkabout adventure with a camera. Moradas are the chapter houses of the Penitente Brotherhood, a lay Catholic order founded here in New Mexico back in the late 1700s or even earlier and still in existence today, mostly in small rural villages in northern New Mexico. The brotherhood performs valuable community service, but because the brothers practice physical penance as a way of personally identifying with the suffering of Jesus Christ, they have been objects of intense curiosity ever since New Mexico became a tourist attraction, and they guard their privacy fiercely. In the creation of our book both Michael Wallis and I worked hard to respect the privacy of all members of the Brotherhood; in fact, before we submitted our work to the publisher, we provided copies of all photographs and text to members of the brotherhood for clarification, comment, and possible veto. With the help of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and other benefactors, I worked for seven years to make photographs of moradas and the sacred landscapes where they are found, and to connect with members of the brotherhood on a personal level as a way of understanding the meaning of this private society. In the end, with the publication of En Divina Luz, I wanted to give the Brothers an opportunity to tell their own story and to give readers an authentic account through my photographs of what it was like to stand in the beautiful and powerful locations of these sacred buildings, and through Michael’s words, to walk in the shoes of these men of faith.

As the book took form, it became clear that I needed to say something about the process of making these photographs and how it changed  me. I wrote the piece below, my Photographer’s Note, which was included in the book to explain that extraordinary experience.  Since it all began on a cold November day when I first encountered a morada, I decided this was where my narrative would begin . . .

MOONRISE OVER PENITENTE MORADA, DUSK, LATE AUTUMN, NEW MEXICO 1991   Photograph by Craig Varjabedian
From En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico 

Photographer’s Note

“He was not the light, only a witness to speak for the light.” John 1:8 (JB)

My earliest encounter with a morada was a profound experience. It happened late one afternoon on an early winter day. I remember driving into a small village north of Santa Fe as if directed by an unknown hand. The round wound up and around a cluster of homes and brought me to the top of a hill overlooking the village and its fields. There I found a structure with a powerful presence.

The light that day was simply spectacular. Swirling clouds covered the sky and for a moment obscured the low, setting sun. For a minute or two it began to snow, and I still can remember the sensation of sharp frozen crystals of ice stinging my face. As the sun emerged from below the clouds, the light illuminated the snow shower so that it looked like millions of tiny shooting stars falling to earth. The clouds continued to swirl in the sky and obscured the sun once more. It became very quiet and still.

I was carried from this unfolding moment into a meditative state where quiet emotions seemed to take over all perceptions and to make them appear otherworldly. Spellbound, I watched the moon rise over this powerful structure on the hill and above the valley around. Time seemed frozen as light danced across distant mountain peaks and dark clouds loomed overhead. The moon continued on its path across the heavens, the glow from its mantle seen briefly through the few pockets of clear sky. I became a witness to a landscape that appeared to be illuminated by a light emanating from inside this morada rather than from the setting sun. This light gave warmth despite the dropping temperature and determined gusts of wind. When the snow began to fall again, I knew that an important gift had been given to me.

It was ice crystals being carried on the wind and striking my face once again that brought me back to the present. Wanting to capture the essence of this fleeting moment, I tried to set up my camera, but the sun had already retreated over the distant hillside. Reflecting on the experience while driving home, I found myself left with questions. If it was my destiny to receive such gifts while making photographs, I concluded it would be through the lens of my camera that an answer might reveal itself.  So began a photographic journey across New Mexico to follow the light.

A grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1990 provided me support to photograph for approximately one year. Later I received two generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts which together with support from other sources allowed me to continue exploring with my camera these humble structures built as bridges between the everyday and the transcendent. It is an involvement that has spanned several years, covered many miles, and resulted in a lot of photographs.

CRUCIFORM PENITENTE MORADA AND FAMILY CHAPEL, NORTHERN NEW MEXICO  1990   Photograph by Craig Varjabedian
From En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico

 
My own desire to make these pictures was not to expose any of the private devotions that take place inside the morada. Instead, I wanted to create images that engaged my own feelings and emotions regarding these simple buildings where through the light, the Creator makes His presence known.  While making pictures at other moradas, I witnessed the light again and again, and sometimes it illuminated subtleties that might have been missed because rational thinking considered them unimportant. The light was becoming my teacher. It could reveal the quintessential moment to release the shutter on my camera, to open a door if you will, which would allow forms riding on waves of light to pass freely and manifest themselves on film. Also, it taught me how to explore within my own process the powerful emotions about my own relationship with the Divine which seemed to surface in the presence of these sacred buildings. Intuitively, I came to understand through making these photographs that while I could never be the light, I could, as a photographer, be a witness to speak for the light. My photographs are presented along with Michael Wallis’ words as statements to that end.

As you experience these images you may note that none of the titles contains information with which to locate any of the moradas. If it is indeed true that being a Penitente Brother is a private commitment made to honor and walk with the Creator, then too, I believe that the locations of their walks must remain private as well.

Each morada represents the human soul’s longing for a direct experience with the Divine. While many moradas were built by Hermanos years ago as places of worship and brotherhood, they are testimony to us all that Spirit, in whatever form we believe it to take, can still be found today. These sacred buildings are reminders, too, that in the remote mountain villages of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, groups of men and their families continue to live lives bathed in the light of the Divine.

Craig Varjabedian
Santa Fe, New Mexico
January 1994

EN DIVINA LUZ: THE PENITENTE MORADAS OF NEW MEXICO   Photographs by Craig Varjabedian  Text by Michael Wallis
The image of the photographer was painted by award-winning santero (saintmaker) Charles M. Carrillo 

En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico is long out of print the result of the exigencies of the publishing world. Used copies sometimes show up in bookstores and on the Internet, and I even have a few brand-new copies squirreled away that I have occasionally been persuaded to part with. E-mail here if you would like to purchase your own signed copy.

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES BOEING 737 AIRCRAFT  |  Stock Photograph from Southwest Airlines
The painterly effect in this photograph was achieved using Alien Skin’s excellent Photoshop/Lightroom plugin Snap Art 3 

When we cease to be earth bound, even if only on a Southwest Airlines flight, we go to a place where our minds can run free and we can become poets. I was recently on a Southwest Airlines flight heading back to New Mexico from Detroit. I had been in the Motor City to help celebrate my father’s 80th birthday, arriving at his favorite restaurant that evening as a total surprise to my Dad. Now, after a weekend of laughing and celebrating and reliving old times, I was heading back west equipped with a new book and an old magazine to pass the time. The book was photographer David duChemin’s Photographically Speaking. The magazine was Fast Company, the December 2011 issue, purchased just before Christmas and still unread, which I had bought largely because of the cover headline “How to Lead a Creative Life: Martin Scorsese Points the Way.” The article, titled The Vision Thing is an insightful look into how this influential film director makes his movies and how he remains creative and vital at the age of 69. Written by Rick Tetzeli with photographs by Art Streiber the piece gave me insights into so many powerful and memorable scenes in his films: the intimate boxing scenes in Raging Bull, I learned, were strongly influenced by a ballet in the film The Red Shoes made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; Nicholas Cage’s Manhattan ambulance paramedic in Bringing Out the Dead is “a modern day saint”-like character whom Scorsese associates with Roberto Rossellini’s film Europa 51. When Mr. Scorsese talks about movies, the conversation moves from director John Cassavetes, who was a mentor, to Stephen Spielberg, who is a friend, to Akira Kurosawa, who in my mind is definitely an acquired taste. Mr. Scorsese is not just fluent in the language of film but steeped in its history. When he is planning out a film, he thinks about other films as part of defining how he wants his own film to look and to function. Those historic films are a part of him. Mr. Scorsese has the deepest kind of respect for the past.

RAGING BULL: A MARTIN SCORSESE FILM
Poster for the film

In our photography workshops at Eloquent Light, I meet a lot of earnest and talented people. Some are looking to understand the myriad of buttons and screen information that most digital SLR cameras feature today. Others are looking for something more. These courageous students want to express something deeper about the world around them, about the human condition, trying to show what all of this means to them. During critiques in our workshops, I will sometimes offer the work of a master photographer as an example. I might see in a student’s work the inkling of an idea that was magnificently realized in an image by another photographer. If I am talking about a student’s photograph of a  landscape, the powerful images of Ansel Adams or Robert Adams may come to mind. If the student is showing me a portrait, I may talk about the compelling work of August Sander or Annie Leibovitz. I want them to see another way that their idea was successfully realized. While I understand that we just can’t see everything, I am disappointed (and sometimes even baffled) that most students do not have even a basic visual vocabulary in the works of master photographic image makers.

Throughout my career, as part of my own photographic practice, I have continuously immersed myself in the work of master photographers, my current obsession being the photographs of Wynn Bullock. I have had the privilege of meeting and working with many great artists over the years. I worked for legendary photographer Paul Caponigro, who in our many conversations after a long day in the studio, could speak fluently about the images of Minor White (his teacher) and Edward Weston and could call up not just photographs but also other works by many great artists. And I have encountered artists in other disciplines too, such as painters and dancers, who can speak with such clarity and understanding about the brush strokes of Rembrandt or Rubens or the subtle choreography of Martha Graham or George Balanchine. These artists understand their relationship to the mentors of the past and present and understand that what these artists have taught them is part of their own artistic expression Many geniuses have been proud to stand on the shoulders of giants. Isn’t it important for us as photographers to know our history and thus where we aesthetically come from?

CHILD IN FOREST (1951) Photograph by Wynn Bullock
Courtesy Bullock Family Photography, LLC. 

When I was in college, I attended a class titled The History & Aesthetics of Photography taught by Anthony Bannon, now director of the George Eastman House. The course changed not only how I looked at photographs but also my overall relationship to photography itself. I began to understand that the “thing” I wanted to express through the images I made was part of a much larger continuum; part of a history of photographers and other artists who were reaching for something deeper in their expressions of the natural world. And by knowing what these artists before me were doing, I could examine and compare and maybe even contrast my own work with theirs and learn from their successes and sometimes even their failures. Looking at these photographers’ images made me a better photographer.

I would highly recommend a class in the History & Aesthetics of Photography to anyone who is serious about image making, but you don’t have to attend a class if one isn’t readily available. There are many books that will inform and enlarge your understanding of photography’s long and illustrious history. In the classes I attended, we used what has often been called the “bible” on the history of photography, The History of Photography from 1839 to the Present, by Beaumont Newhall, who had the good fortune to be friends with many of the people who were actually creating the history of photography. Other books worth taking a look at include Naomi Rosenblum’s World History of Photography and Helmut Gernsheim’s seminal Concise History of Photography.  All these important books are still in print; I found them on Amazon.com just before I posted this journal entry and I know our local library in Santa Fe has copies as well.

Just as I went to Detroit to honor and respect my father’s birthday and by doing so recognize my own past, honoring those photographers who came before will not only inform the images you make but will also help you recognize that we are all part of that much larger continuum of image makers, many of whom have worked tirelessly to gain recognition for photography as an important art form and means of expression. Knowing who these photographers were/are will help you not only become a more thoughtful, creative and informed photographer, but also help you make better and probably even more powerful images.

THE RIO CHAMA FROM THE OVERLOOK, LATE AUTUMN, NR. ABIQUIU, NEW MEXICO  1997
Photograph by ©Craig Varjabedian

I was contacted by Santa Fean Magazine recently. If you haven’t heard of the Santa Fean, it’s a venerable bi-monthly publication focused on the art, culture, history and lifestyle of Santa Fe and northern New Mexico. And if you too are enchanted by New Mexico as I am you might wish to consider giving yourself the gift of a subscription. It seems that the magazine wants to reproduce my photograph Rio Chama from the Overlook, Late Afternoon Light, nr. Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1997 in a photography feature they are preparing for their February/March issue. The Gerald Peters Gallery, my dealer in Santa Fe, had sent the image along in response to a query from the magazine. Anyway Samantha, the Assistant Editor of the Santa Fean, contacted us directly asking me “if I could tell her a little bit more about the photograph. Maybe how I felt when I took it, or what inspires me to capture images like these.”

I hadn’t really thought much about the details of making that image for a long time, my mind being focused on current work. As I began to ponder the image, I remembered as if it were yesterday how incredible the light was that day and the crystalline-like quality it had. I also remember thinking at the moment after I released the shutter that I had made an important image.

For years I have kept a journal after being inspired by reading The Daybooks of Edward Weston, a journal kept by legendary photographer Edward Weston. Like Edward, I have found the process of putting my thoughts down on paper to be a therapeutic (and sometimes even cathartic) way to explore and consider ideas, work through the various things that life throws my way and generally to help find and know my place in the world. I was fortunate to have my old journal on hand when the magazine’s request came in and by returning to its pages I was able to “turn back the clock” if you will, to the details of that autumn afternoon in 1997.

So I wrote back to Samantha:

 Hi Samantha,

My business partner Cindy Lane forwarded your request for additional information regarding my photograph Rio Chama from the Overlook, Late Afternoon Light, nr. Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1997.  It is one of my absolute favorite images and one that continues to intrigue me particularly now that I am making large prints of the image that truly give the feeling that one is standing at the edge of the cliff with me overlooking that graceful bend in the river.

I made some notes about the photograph in a journal I keep. Here’s what I wrote about that day:

In the autumn months, the late afternoon light is an ideal time to photograph fall foliage. And this scene of the meandering Rio Chama was certainly no exception. In fact, this landscape is so mesmerizing, it told me exactly where to stand and how to put the picture together in the viewfinder of my camera. I made two photographs that day, one in color and another in black and white. Although the colour image gallantly records the scene, the black and white image rises to the occasion. I believe it captures the light that magically dances across that landscape — the illumination of the golden autumn trees, the curve of the meandering river, the dramatic shadows cast across the landscape — all combine to reveal a scene that is both momentous and powerful.

It is interesting to me that for reasons I can’t explain I did not keep the colour transparency I made that day.  Perhaps I knew even then that my best photographic expressions would be revealed in black & white.

©Craig Varjabedian

You might be interested in knowing that my next book Landscape Dreams, A New Mexico Portrait will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Fall 2012 and will contain an essay by a former editor of the Santa Fean, Marin Sardy.

If you need a digital file of the image or additional information about it I hope you will get back to me.  Otherwise I will wait with anticipation for the publication of your February/March issue.

With kind regards to you,

Craig

I never knew when I began keeping a journal in the 1970’s how important this process of writing down my life would be. I can now go back, for example, and relive in great detail the birth of my daughter R, remember some sage piece of wisdom that photographer Paul shared with me over Chinese food at his Santa Fe home and . . . and an incredible moment I photographed late one autumn afternoon many years ago, where light danced across a magical northern New Mexico landscape and the glowing water in the Rio Chama gently made its way downstream.

I encourage you to write down your life.

THE DAYBOOKS OF EDWARD WESTON-Two Volumes in One
Foreword by Beaumont Newhall   Edited by Nancy Newhall
Published by the Aperture Foundation

My interest in the work and life of Edward Weston continues with my re-reading of his daybooks; a diary the photographer kept for over 15 years in which he recorded his struggle to understand himself, his society and his art. His journal has become a classic of photographic literature and something that every photographer should read. Edward Weston was a towering figure in twentieth-century photography, whose restless quest for beauty and the mystical presence behind it resulted in a body of work unrivaled in the medium. The legendary photography curator John Szarkowski observed that “It was as though the things of everyday experience had been transformed… into organic sculptures, the forms of which were both the expression and the justification of the life within… He had freed his eyes of conventional expectation, and had taught them to see the statement of intent that resides in natural form.”

A favorite quote of mine by Edward Weston from his Daybooks . . .

I start with no preconceived idea – discovery excites me to focus – then rediscovery through the lens – final form of presentation seen on the ground glass, the finished print pre-visioned complete in every detail of texture, movement proportion, before exposure – the shutter’s release automatically and finally fixes my conception, allowing no after manipulation – the ultimate end, the print, is but a duplication of all that I saw and felt through my camera.”

AUTO PARTS SHOP, ATLANTA GEORGIA 1936
Photograph by Walker Evans

Is this a creative image?  An expressive image?  You decide . . .

As an artist I think a lot about creativity and the creative process. At Eloquent Light Photography Workshops where I teach, we work hard not only to take our participants to beautiful places to photograph but also to help them make more thoughtful and creative images when they get there. We even offer a workshop focused entirely on making more creative and meaningful images titled simply “The Camera & Creativity,” which I co-teach with creativity coach Twyla Smith from Norman, Oklahoma. A distinction between our workshops and other programs out there is that we emphasize the primary creative moment, that magical “spark” of seeing and recognition and eventually the actual release of the shutter—as opposed to the kind of creativity that takes place later in Photoshop. Both are useful, of course, but sometimes when I look at work in magazines and on the Web, I wonder how much an image is about the capabilities of Photoshop and what the software brings to the image. I look not for the inventive things a photographer does after having taken the picture but for what the photographer actually sees and expresses, a uniquely personal vision.

I have come to understand that a photographer must achieve a certain balance between making images that are only creative and those that are only expressive. A creative photograph effectively communicates something to another person. It can create a mood in the person looking at the image. Such images can be kind of clever—many popular magazine illustrations fall into this category—but they lack the emotional depth that makes great (or even good) art. An expressive photograph, on the other hand, is an image that is personal, created to discover the photographer’s inner thoughts and feelings, maybe even his deepest inner self. An image that is only expressive is self-indulgent . These two approaches to image making must blend together in some almost magical way for a really great photograph to be achieved, one that not only makes us feel a particular way, perhaps even beguiles us, but also lingers in the mind long after we have seen it. Understanding these two approaches gives the photographer a structure through which to view his images and can help begin a process of self-critique, posing serious questions about what might be missing or perhaps what needs strengthening in a given photograph.

Sometimes a student in a workshop asks how to find his own artistic “voice” and express it through the images he makes. I submit that both the creative and expressive are important ingredients in a good photograph (and any artistic expression) and must be balanced by the photographer who wants to make photographs that truly “sing” with the music that is inside them.

In the end I am wrestling with these concepts too, and I will be exploring them further in this journal / blog. I would love to hear what you think about these ideas and invite you to join the conversation by leaving your comments below.

NB: My thinking regarding creative and expressive photographs was informed by the images and writings of Minor White, who explored through his own photography and through his writings the deeper and underlying meaning of images. I invite you to take a look at his photographs here.

MY EDWARD WESTON CHRISTMAS, 2011
Photograph by ©Craig Varjabedian

SO LET ME BEGIN BY TELLING YOU WHO EDWARD WESTON WAS.  Edward Weston is considered one of the masters of 20th century photography. His legacy includes thousands of meticulously composed photographs he made with an 8×10 view camera and superbly printed by contact on silver-gelatin photographic paper. In many ways he (along with photographers Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Brett Weston (Edward’s son) and many others) created the gold standard for how we photograph the natural world today. If you haven’t viewed his work, I encourage you to peruse the web site that Kim and Gina Weston (the photographer’s grandson and his wife) have created to honor and remember Edward’s photography along with presenting some of Kim’s beautiful images as well. Ansel Adams may have said it best when he penned:

Weston is, in the real sense, one of the few creative artists of today. He has recreated the matter-forms and forces of nature; he has made these forms eloquent of the fundamental unity of the world. His work illuminates man’s inner journey toward perfection of the spirit.”

When I began my life as a photographer, it was the work of Edward Weston that I found myself returning to again and again. There is something absolutely compelling about this man’s vision and his photographs that call you back again and again to look at them. They are nuanced and subtle and multilayered and beguiling.

So when I was crafting my letter to Santa this year I asked that jolly old elf for the new coffee-table book Edward Weston: One Hundred Twenty-five Photographs, a lavish volume set inside an elegant gold cloth slipcase and produced in a limited edition of only 2000 copies (The Pelican Brief by John Grisham sold over 11 million copies).You can’t imagine my excitement Christmas morning when I tore off the paper to reveal a box emblazoned with the photographer’s initials written in his own hand. Inside was this magical book that presents 125 of Edward’s well-known images and many of his lesser known gems. Additionally the book includes reproductions of family photographs and assorted ephemera that help round out this grand tribute to this legendary photographer. The photographs are beautifully produced in duotone, a lithographic printing process that uses two plates, one that records the shadows in a photograph, usually with black ink, and another plate that prints the mid-tones and highlights with an ink chosen to suit the image. The process is capable of reproducing photographs that, when done well, can be nearly as good as the original.

Without really intending to, I have been building a photo book collection for years and I have watched it grow from the 20 volumes or so that I had when I was in college to many shelves filled now with books that I can only say have become like friends. I spend many hours pouring over photographs found in these books, trying to divine the secrets held within the images in order to improve how I see. And I want to feed my muse; that mystical lady that gently provides the guidance to look in a certain place to find the magic. Photography is something that must be practiced constantly, not only behind the camera but by studying great images too. Books allow us to do this in a very portable and often affordable way. I have come to see this process of study much like listening to great music over and over again, trying not only to understand its construction but also to unlock and understand its mysteries and surprises.

All of this brings me back to Edward Weston: One Hundred Twenty-five Photographs, an inspired presentation of this important photographer’s work. While the $250. price tag may shy you away from acquiring this important volume (currently $193. at Amazon.com) it is a work that belongs in all photo book collections. Think of this book as a piece of art in itself. And if you haven’t begun your photography book collection yet, may I suggest beginning with this book?

YUCCA AND CLOUDS, WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT, ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO  2011
Photograph by ©Craig Varjabedian  All Rights Reserved.

As I stand in the falling morning mist, I fear that I once again, have failed to capture that which is the true meaning of the vision nature has presented me. I stand and wonder if this, my quest for an artistic balance in a life of labor and stress, is truly a calling I can legitimately claim. For it is not a lack of tools that I suffer, but a lack of time and experience with those tools. Preparation, poor at best, has led me to this moment and left me not with a trophy of perception but instead, another cliched remnant of reality, veiled in mediocrity.

I now realize that for the photographer, it is the balance of inner self and technical ability that yields the final prize. While rare and often curious in nature, we insist on dismissing our failures not blaming our own ignorance but instead the fortitude of our equipment. Perhaps as I grow to understand the nature of my actions, I will become more sensitive to this failure and help others, as well as myself, grow beyond these boundaries and become the photographer that I know I am.

From the DMax Newsletter. Back issues are available from the View Camera Store. Click here for more information.