ENCHANTED IMAGES
Converge Las Cruces Fine Art displays ‘Craig Varjabedian: The Light of Days Gone By’
Craig Varjabedian has been conducting a visual symphony of New Mexico for 45 years.
Among moonlit moradas, horse silhouettes and sandcast shadows, the photographer has crafted measure after measure in a palette of color and light.
His new book, “Craig Varjabedian: The Light of Days Gone By” (Eloquent Light Editions) features a nearly comprehensive gallery of the photographer’s work. The work complements a virtual exhibition of the same title at Converge Las Cruces Fine Art’s online show at convergelascruces.com in a 3D virtual walk through 30 images. The period extends from the early 1980s to 2018.
“I think the camera allowed me to find my way in the world,” Varjabedian said in a telephone interview from Santa Fe. “It’s one of the great
est joys I’ve ever had.”
His images have prompted fan letters –– now emails — from across the globe, including Australia, New Zealand, Russia and countries in Africa.
“They often tell me their story, about being in Alaska and growing up in New Mexico,” he said. “I’m really quite honored and humbled, too. The book was almost a fait accompli.”
Varjabedian credits a Michigan high school art teacher with gestating his career.
“He realized early on that the best way he could be a teacher was to get out of the way,” he said.
The photographer first visited Santa Fe on the way home from an Ansel Adams workshop in California. He was so broke he slept in his car in front of the Plaza Restaurant.
“I didn’t have the money for a hotel room,” Varjabedian said. “I remember looking up at that pre-dawn light and thinking to myself, ‘My God, this is miraculous. You could almost reach out and catch the light in a Mason jar.”
When he returned to his graduate studies in Rochester, New York, Varjabedian asked his adviser if he could complete his thesis work in New Mexico. He did, and he never left. Ironically, the book cover leads with “Illuminated Stream, Dawn, Plymouth, Vermont,” taken on a 1982 camping trip. The photograph marked the first time Varjabedian felt he married his technical skills with his emotions.
“I was able to make a print with the sense of awe I was feeling when I was staying there,” the photographer said. “It’s a quiet moment, and you’re looking at it just as the sun comes up.”
“Red Sky and Dunes, Sunset, Autumn, White Sands National Park,” 2015, captures more familiar New Mexico territory with a lipstick sunset painting the clouds. Varjabedian had been visiting the site for five years.
“When you do that, you really get to know a place,” he said. “I just happened to be out and climbed to the top of this dune and watched the whole sunset. I was looking for an image that summed up the entirety of the place.”
His Native American portraits reflect a more recent series. Varjabedian shot the floralbedecked “Tanysha With Flowers in Her Hair, Keres, Kewa Pueblo” in 2018.
“Everything that you see except the flowers were part of what a Native American woman would wear for a wedding,” he said.
His assistant had brought hanging baskets of flowers for Mother’s Day when Varjabedian realized his sitter needed some floral embellishment.
He approaches portraits as collaboration.
Varjabedian shot “Chuugaa Hoewii (Red Hawk), Tewa, Ohkay Owengeh” in 2018. Red Hawk was known for performing a Comanche ceremonial dance.
“He came out of the dressing room with that paint on his face,” Varjabedian said. “It was so transformative. For me, it was almost ghostly. That’s why I intuitively asked him to cross his arms that way.”
“I love it when the people I’m photographing bring their sense of things to the process.”
In 1990, the photographer captured “Moonrise Over Penitente Morada” in northern New Mexico. The structure’s bell tilts toward a trio of wooden crosses.
“The idea for the picture started as a dream,” he said. “I dreamed of the building and watching the moonrise. The dream was powerful; it wouldn’t disappear.”
“There were a lot of astromechanics involved in getting that picture made,” he continued. “I ended up using the Farmer’s Almanac. I was going up every moonrise for almost a year. Now I’ve got an app on my phone that would tell me exactly when the moon comes up.”
In 2006, he photographed a horse grazing in the sunrise at Bell Ranch as he led a photography workshop.
“We went out every morning with their horses,” Varjabedian said. “I just happened to be walking toward the sun and the horse was doing the same thing. It was a real challenge to make because it happened so quickly. I got three frames out of it because the horse dropped out.”
The Native American portraits offer a glimpse of his next book.
“I think Native Americans have not been well represented historically ——from Hollywood to Zane Gray and so forth,” Varjabedian said. “I’m making these pictures as a way for these people to tell their stories.”