Born in Santa Fe, based in Albuquerque, and a longtime staff photographer for the Santa Fe New Mexican, Gabriela Campos recently won a National Magazine Award for “The Art of the Cruise,” a 12-month project on lowrider culture for High Country News. Campos’s pictures feel cinematic and of the moment but can also convey quiet intimacy. Her work is exhibited by the Smithsonian and the New Mexico History Museum and can be seen at the Monroe Gallery, in Santa Fe. See the shots: On Instagram @gabriela.e.campos.
Joseph Kayne makes photographs that look like history itself. The photographer, who splits his time between Taos and Chicago, uses an 8-by-10 wooden camera, an old-school lens (made in 1870!), and a technique developed in the 1850s to create stunning tintypes of Native Americans in New Mexico and the Southwest. Among his many subjects is gubernatorial candidate and former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna). See the shots: On Instagram @kaynephoto.
In 1994, Craig Varjabedian published En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico (UNM Press), a beautiful book of black-and-white photographs that stands not just as a historical record of the modest religious meeting houses but as a study of how architecture and cultural identity come together in northern New Mexico. The recent paperback edition of his Into the Great White Sands (UNM Press, 2018) captures the poetry of the national park, by day and night, like few others have. See the shots: On Instagram @craig.varjabedian.photo.
Conceptual, theatrical, and bubbling with a pop culture vibe, Cara Romero’s work offers, in her words, a “uniquely Indigenous worldview” that pushes back against the simplistic “ ‘one-story’ narrative that casts complex, living cultures into stereotypes.” Romero, a citizen of California’s Chemehuevi Tribe, lives in Santa Fe and exhibits locally, often at Cara Romero Gallery + Studio. Her work is also part of the collections of the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New
York City, and the British Museum, in London, among others. See the shots: On Instagram @cararomerophotography.
Many photographers look to bottle New Mexico’s unmatched natural beauty, but Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli? He’s drawn to prison ink, motorcycle clubs, tuned-up cars, and subcultures of all stripes. Paolinelli, who lives in Albuquerque, is no drive-by photographer—from his portraits, it’s clear his subjects trust him, lowering their guard as he lifts his camera. His first book, Seventh and Central (UNM Press), which came out this year, is a fantastic dive into New Mexico’s vibrant lowrider culture and the bonds of community. See the shots: On Instagram @nathanielpaolinelli.
In 2024, Toba Pato Tucker received the prestigious Lee Krasner Award (named after the groundbreaking Abstract Expressionist painter), given annually to honor one artist’s lifetime of achievement. It was richly deserved: For nearly five decades—ever since she won a National Endowment of the Arts grant in 1980—Tucker has been photographing Diné and Pueblo people in New Mexico and Arizona, along with other aspects of Native American culture and the Southwest. Her portraits, both black-and-white and color, are deeply resonant, almost spiritual, and her landscapes are breathtaking. During her long career, Tucker, now 91, made Santa Fe her home. See the shots: View Tucker’s work at the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, nmmag.us/tucker.