Landscape Dreams, a New Mexico Portrait

This large-format book serves to showcase the photographs of Craig Varjabedian, and the state of New Mexico. The photographs are landscape images of the state, with a few portraits, all in high-contrast black-and-white, hieratically posed or frozen by a high-speed shutter. The subjects would be stereotypes--the weathered hands of a rancher holding a baby goat, crosses by the roadside, rugged hills studded with pinon pine were it not for the photographer's high degree of skill and the gravitas lent by the absence of color. Varjabedian's trading of New Mexico's astonishing colors for texture (along with a particular style of exposure that turns hard light or high color into something resembling a rime of ice) will seem satisfactory to readers fond of the Ansel Adams school of landscape photography, and less so to readers fond of the National Geographic school. The book includes a good amount of text, in the form of three essays: by Marin Sandy and Hampton Sides on the state, and by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish on the photographer. Varjabedian also contributes a short piece of his own. The text's content is predictable for a book designed to showcase the beauty, history, and tourist interest of the state, done with journalistic skill and some flair. The book will interest readers looking for something slower and more thoughtful than a New Mexico tourist guide, with a focus on history, culture, and landscape. Oversize: 11x14". Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)