Articles / Best-Ofs

Award-winning photographer Craig Varjabedian's new book The Light of Days Gone By was 45 years in the making. It celebrates with stunning imagery the journey of a photographer and the beautiful light he has witnessed and captured along the way. The Light of Days Gone By is a testament to Varjabedian's vision and years of hard work and will appeal to anyone who appreciates fine photography.
Varjabedian's photographs from the magnificent red hills of Ghost Ranch and gleaming white dunes of White Sands to more faraway places—from strong Native Americans to weathered cowboys and more—these expansive landscapes and intimate portraits are all presented in this beautifully printed book.
The 48 color and black & white photographs were carefully curated by Varjabedian's long time studio director Cindy Lane, to not only share the breadth of this photographer's career but also to reveal relationships between individual images and from the themes he has explored over the years. Complementing the images are two essays. Cindy Lane provides insight into the photographer's artistic vision and Myra Bullington looks at the importance of photographs to memory and shares an appreciation for the photographer and his work. The book is not signed.
Museum curator Catherine Whitney writes “Craig Varjabedian's photography captures, with arresting clarity, the ineffable whispers of time and spirit layered deep in New Mexico's cultural landscape. Through the artful combination of his compassionate eye and technical virtuosity, he evokes the past in the present and the holy in the everyday." Craig Varjabedian is a photographer who explores the back roads of the American West, making pictures of the unique and quintessential. 45 years behind the camera, 14 books, 42 museum exhibitions and hundreds of fine art photographic prints all comprise a rich and rewarding career. His images share awe-inspiring stories of the land and the people who live on it—one photograph at a time.

British photographer Tariq Zaidi presents a fashion subculture of Kinshasa & Brazzaville: La Sape, Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes ("Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People"). Its followers are known as 'Sapeurs' ('Sapeuses' for women). Most have ordinary day jobs as taxi-drivers, tailors and gardeners, but as soon as they clock off they transform themselves into debonair dandies. Sashaying through the streets they are treated like rock stars - turning heads, bringing 'joie de vivre' to their communities and defying their circumstances. Traditionally passed down through the male line, many Congolese women and their children have recently begun donning designer suits. As Papa Wemba (1949-2016, Congolese singer and fashion icon who popularized Sape) once said: 'White people invented the clothes, but we make an art of it.'

Eboundja is a project that occupies Reinout van den Bergh from 2011 onwards. Since 2009, the thirty families of the same-named fishing village in southern Cameroon are in great uncertainty about their future. The village is situated in the middle of a coastal strip where the Chinese, in exchange for Cameroon’s iron ore, are constructing a deep sea harbour. The inhabitants are vulnerable to the combination of a corrupt government and megalomaniac project developers. In a series of photographs van den Bergh shows, with great commitment, the decline as well as the intimacy and beauty of the small community; the resignation but also the pride and resistance.
As of 2006 van den Bergh has been curator of the Dutch BredaPhoto festival. His work has been exhibited in various museums in Eastern and Western Europe and Africa, and published in several books and other publications.

In Color In Japan is the debut book of the award-winning street photographer Shin Noguchi, with an introduction by Chuck Patch. 130 powerful images tell the story of everyday public and private life in Japan. 500 limited-edition copies signed by Shin Noguchi will be available in White (470) and Black (30) editions.