Waiting for the Light
Waiting for the Light: Photography Books and the Excellence Legacy
By Craig Varjabedian
Dec 1, 2007

I love books, particularly books about photography.  When I began my career as a photographer, the first book I remember buying was the book Sunflower by photographer Paul Caponigro.  I remember being drawn to the power of the subject and seemingly never-ending ways that sunflowers could be seen. There is something true and honest and right about these images. I studied that book for weeks and came away with a powerful sense of “sunflowerness” —an almost physical sense of what sunflowers truly are. Purchase of that book in a way foretold my future; many years later I had the privilege of working for the great photographer.

I also collect photography books. Lots of them.  They are my window into the world of the great masters of the lens.  They allow me to commiserate and perhaps even find my place within the vast photographic continuum that I am a part of. In an article written a few years ago in LensWork Magazine, Brooks Jensen wrote,

“ . . . photographers who lack visual literacy—a knowledge of the photographers and photographs of the past—do not have the benefits of historical photographs challenging them.  Visual literacy means knowing what those who came before you thought, knowing what those who came before you did, knowing what those who came before you accomplished and where they failed.  More importantly, visual literacy provides us more than just a record of what was done.  It also provides us with an excellence legacy that shows us what succeeded—and what still succeeds, years or decades later.”

This is why I have voraciously collected the books of photographers whose work I love and also books by photographers whose work I believe has something to teach me. I want to know where I come from.  I want to be challenged.  I want to know what was going on in the minds of these great artists when they made some of their best-known images.

Sometimes the meaning of an image “comes at you like a knife” as the photographer Danny Lyon once said.  Other times, its meaning is not readily apparent.  When my friend, photographer Jay Packer speaks about my photographs of the moradas of the Penitente Brotherhood that came together in the book En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico, he comments about how when he looks at the pictures he sees something different every time that makes him appreciate the images even more.  By the way, this is probably the highest compliment any artist could ever receive about their work.

So to learn to be a good photographer, you need to look at good images. Lots of ‘em.  Years ago, I asked an award-winning banjo player how he learned to play the banjo so well and I’ll never forget his answer. He told me that every day (aside from his regular two hour practice routine) he listened to two hours of recordings by the great players of banjo.  He said he went on a diet of banjo music! I learned that constant practice is an important part of mastering anything.

Photographers need to practice as well. Yes, you have to know how to set up your camera and adjust your images in your favorite image-editing software but perhaps even more important than using the tools is constantly looking at great photographs.  And, building your own library of photography books is a great place to start.

So with the holiday season upon us, I have assembled a selection of some of my favorite books that will truly inform your vision. Some of them are recently published and others are perennial favorites. And one in particular, was created by a photographer who has set out to change the world.


Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs by Ansel Adams. Edited by Andrea G. Stillman (Little, Brown, 2007. ISBN: 978-0316117722)

I always look forward with some anticipation to learn what new Ansel Adams book is going to be published for the holidays.  Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs is the largest compilation of Adams' photographic works ever published and does not disappoint. Organized chronologically, it presents the full range of his finest work, from his first photographs made in Yosemite and the High Sierra in 1916 to his work in the National Parks in the 1940s, up through his last important photographs of the 1960s. Included are Adams' most popular images—many of them icons of twentieth-century art—as well as a number of masterly but little-known photographs. Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs offer an unprecedented survey of his development as an artist. Of the themes and subjects that animate his work and of the evolution of a style that is uniquely that of Ansel Adams.


Making Love with Light: Contemplating Nature with Words and Photographs  by John Daido Loori  (Dharma Communications, 2000.  ISBN: 9781882795116) (Shambhala Publications edition, 2007. ISBN: 978-1590304860)

This book of exquisite photographs begins with the premise that unless we love nature, we will not work to save it from exploitation and eventual destruction. The book includes two essays, 77 color photographs of rocks, water, vegetation, occasionally of animals, accompanied by short Zen poems. The Zen master John Daido Loori, who is widely known for his efforts to make creative expression an integral part of spiritual practice, here inaugurates a new art form: Zen photography. It’s a modern continuation of an ancient tradition that looks to art as an expression of the enlightened mind. The camera thus becomes a contemporary version of the Zen brush, as Loori captures moments of exceptional, unrepeatable beauty. Each image is a seed for contemplation.  I am also fond of Master Loori’s The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life.


A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove by Bill Wittliff. Foreword by Larry McMurtry; introduction by Stephen Harrigan  (University of Texas Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0292713116)

Now bringing the sweeping visual imagery of the miniseries to the printed page, A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove presents more than one hundred classic images created by Bill Wittliff, the award-winning writer and executive producer (with Suzanne de Passe) of Lonesome Dove and a renowned fine art photographer. Wittliff made these photographs during the filming of the miniseries, but they are worlds apart from ordinary production stills. Reminiscent of the nineteenth-century cowboy photographs of Erwin Smith and the western paintings of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, each Lonesome Dove image stands alone as an evocative work of art, while as a whole, they provide a stunning visual summary of the entire miniseries.


Natural Beauty: Farber Nudes by Robert Farber (Merrell, 2004, Rev. ed. ISBN: 978-1858942711)

Robert Farber is celebrated for his sensitive, sensual, often abstract nudes. But his preoccupation with natural forms extends beyond the human body: landscapes and flower studies have been among his most popular pieces, and also feature among the works published here. The technical proficiency fostered by Farber's background in commercial and fashion photography bestows an inimitably soft, grainy patina upon his increasingly simple, elegant, spare images. Light, color, tone, and composition are all carefully orchestrated to render a sense of stillness, silence, and peace. Whether presented as portraits or as abstract compositions, what these exquisite pieces have in common is their ability to provoke in the viewer a sense of quietude and contemplation. Painterly, textured, these masterly photographs prove that Farber's reputation as the doyen of mood is utterly deserved.


The Idea of Cuba by Alex Harris. Essay by Lillian Guerra. (University of New Mexico Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0826341396)

This remarkable journey into contemporary Cuba by photographer and writer Alex Harris is both a powerful and mysterious evocation of life on the island and an original meditation on the nature of documentary photography. Like his mentor, Walker Evans, who photographed Cuba in 1933 at a pivotal political moment, Harris arrived in Cuba with his camera at a crossroads in Cuban history. Harris made three trips to Cuba, on each trip using a different approach to peer deeper into the fabric of Cuban society. In the foreground of Harris's photographs and text are some of the archetypes of contemporary Cuban life: the indomitable 1950s American car, the beautiful young woman, and the revered revolutionary hero. Yet Harris recasts these symbols. We don't look at the car, but through it to consider the tangled relationship between Cuba and the United States. His portraits of young women challenge us to consider the nature of our gaze and to see the changing status of Cuban women in relation to Castro's political survival. The Cuban hero José Martí, a repeated icon in Harris’s photographs and the focus of his text, evokes Martí’s constant physical and spiritual presence for the Cuban people.


Eye of the West by Nancy Wood (University of New Mexico Press, 2007. IBSN: 978-0826343192)

More than thirty years ago and armed with little more than a camera and a vision, Western writer and photographer Nancy Wood set out in a battered Subaru to capture a vanishing part of the American West. Focusing on the Grass Roots People of Colorado, the Utes, Taos Pueblo, and homesteaders of Pie Town, New Mexico, Wood devoted nearly twenty years to catalogue the lives of the rural inhabitants. The result is in an intimate portrait achieved through Wood's long associations with each subject, providing a rare glimpse into a forgotten past and a unique part of the history of the American West.

Nancy Wood is a documentary photographer who trained under the legendary Roy Striker, the director of the Farm Security Administration who under the auspices of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program created a pictorial record of the plight of Americans during the depression. Now drawing on more than 24,000 negatives in her own collection and adding her commentary on becoming a photographer, Wood has compiled this powerful book that captures the beauty of the moment and celebrates its universality and its fragility.


Four and Twenty Photographs: Stories from Behind the Lens by Craig Varjabedian. Text by Robin Jones; afterword by Jay Packer. (University of New Mexico Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0826340948)

(I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share a few words about my new book, in this case, through the evocations of my publisher.) In his sixth publication, Craig Varjabedian shares his favorite photographs and the stories behind them. Landscapes, architecture, and people are magically revealed through his images as readers gain insight into his creative process. The strength of these four and twenty photographs is not only in their beauty but also in the relationship between photographer and subject--a relationship that goes far beyond the visual.

Varjabedian's finely detailed photographs range from the magnificent landscapes of the Southwest, to intimate portraits and luminous places. Whimsical, solemn, enlightening--the narratives expand upon the photographs, so that you view the pictures with another level of meaning, the imagination behind the image. Varjabedian elaborates on his recognition of the decisive moment--the moment a subject reveals its authentic self to the photographer.


David Plowden: Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography by David Plowden. Introductions by Richard Snow and Steve Edwards.  (W.W. Norton, 2007. ISBN: 978-0393062540)

I believe David Plowden is a photographer’s photographer. This beautiful volume is both a tribute to and a celebration for an artist who, more than anyone else, has given us a visual record of our mark on the land over the last half-century. David Plowden's beautiful black-and-white images reveal his great respect for man's ingenuity and honest work, documenting a disappearing landscape of industry, small towns, wonderful devices, and noble structures. I personally regret that Mr. Plowden’s photographs are not better known.

American historian and bestselling author David McCullough writes, "Plowden has produced some of the most powerful photographs we have of man-made America. He is propelled, driven, by a sense of time running out and the feeling that he must not just make a record, but confer a kind of immortality on certain aspects of American civilization before they vanish." As Walker Evans gave us the first half of the twentieth century, David Plowden has given us the second. David Plowden: Vanishing Point represents the best of this magnificent body of work.


Photos That Inspire: Photo Workshop by Lynne Eodice  (Wiley, 2007. ISBN: 978-0470119556)

Photos that Inspire. Have you ever wondered what goes into making a great photograph? Photographer Lynne Eodice has wondered about it too and decided to write a book that explores how great photographs are made. She is also the managing editor of Photoworkshop.com’s widely popular Double Exposure web magazine and writes a monthly column about inspired photographs and the photographers who make them. Double Exposure is part of the web community Photoworkshop.com, a place where photographers can come for advice on almost anything photographic. You can enter monthly photo contests, check out the latest photo gear, and set up your own web portfolio. You can also view some truly spectacular photographs and learn how they were made.

The book Photos that Inspire presents some of the best work of Photoworkshop.com members in the Portfolios or Bio & Visual Exchange web pages, contest entries from Double Exposure, and others whose photography has caught her eye. These photographs exhibit not only great skill but creativity as well. While the book does provide the “recipes” for how each image was made, its strength is that it’s also a book of “photographic ideas” that can help photographers improve the way they see.



Passage to Angkor by Kenro Izu (Friends Without a Border, 2006. ISBN: 978-0965357470)

Kenro Izu is a photographer of sacred sites.  His remarkable work both pays homage to the 19th-century masters of photography yet displays an undercurrent of striking modernity. Collected here are Izu's most accomplished Angkor Wat photographs, enhanced with the acclaimed poetry of Helen Ibbitson Jessup.  Like the makers of the sacred image of Buddha, who utter three prayers for each stroke of the carving tool, Kenro Izu considers the act of picturemaking a type of divine practice, capturing essence and light.

After making numerous trips to Angkor Wat, Izu was deeply moved by his encounters with Cambodian children.  He decided to do something about the poverty and the need for pediatric care in that faraway land.  He created the not-for-profit organization, Friends Without A Border, dedicated to building and operating Angkor Hospital for Children. With all the proceeds from this book going to the hospital, I invite you to add Passage to Angkor to your photography library.  Not only will the book itself help make a difference in your photography, your purchase will make a difference in the lives of some children who can use your help the most.