"As the title suggests, a darkness tints the beauty in Jack Parsons's book of color photographs of New Mexico. It can be an exciting darkness, such as in the foreground of a view of the distant Pedernal from Abiquiú or in the thrilling stillness of a pecan orchard in the Mesilla Valley. It also is a foreboding darkness. Consider Parsons's photographs of an awe-inspiring cloud formation over White Sands National Monument or a storm over the Sangres in Taos or an eerie turquoise fog enshrouding Villanueva. Parsons has also found a starkness of light in images of religious devotion...The photos Parsons chose for the book are from more than three decades of picture taking. This is a book to be cherished."
—David Steinberg, Books Editor, Albuquerque Journal

White Sands National Monument

Hillsboro

"Santa Fe artists are fond of pointing out that the sky in New Mexico is the landscape...In his latest coffee table collection, photographer Jack Parsons's land- and sky-scapes show a beauty usually only understood by those who have lived there for generations; photographs of towns, people, trucks, and horses blend the artistic and anthropological. The result is a magical mosaic of the Land of Enchantment.
       "Whereas Parsons's previous photography collections focused on relatively narrowly focused subjects, Dark Beauty swoops from the majestic to the personal and then back again. Most photographs are placed off-center on the page, surrounded by uninterrupted broad margins. Parsons's audience encounters his visions as he saw them—not all at once but as individual scenes.
         "Between the grand vistas and religious iconography of New Mexico, Parsons's photographs reveal a gentle sense of humor. Not only is he filled with respect and love for his subject, he also laughs with it. A landscape, for example, focuses on Paul's Bar. The sky above is divided by a brilliant rainbow, lit underneath as if sheltering the adobe dive below from the storm.
         "Despite his subject's mystique, what makes Parsons's work so wonderful is the land. It's the photographer's skill. New Mexico is difficult to photograph. The macro is overwhelming. The golden sunlight blinds all but the keenest observers to the minute details. And the vast distances and deep shadows discourage casual exploitation by all but the most intrepid adventures. But, in Dark Beauty, Parsons captures for all of us the material out of which countries are made."
—Joseph Thompson, Fore Word Review

"The phrase 'dark beauty' will never have the tourist appeal of 'the land of enchantment.' But, for photographer Jack Parsons, who has called New Mexico home since the 1960s, it's a perfect summation of how our sun-drenched mesas and star-cloaked skies lend an astral beauty to an arid land that has often exhausted and impoverished its inhabitants.
          "For nearly five decades, Parsons has been making images and documentaries of New Mexico and its traditions and cultures. His books are photographic studies of the state's ranchers, churches, lowriders, chile farmers, artists, Hispano musicians, and Native Americans.
          "But Dark Beauty is a very different Jack Parsons book. Unmoored to specific subject matter, the book takes in photos Parsons shot as recently as last year and as long ago as the 1970s. Selected from his personal library of more than 400,000 photos, the images are a kaleidoscope of all parts of the state. One of the book's most beautiful images shows a rainbow arcing over Paul's Bar in Ranchos de Taos. The faded, fanciful lettering on the now-closed 'Favorita Dancehall' suggests a place where people once worked, loved, and played.
          "Most of the book's photographs have never been published; some have appeared in print but never in a format which Parsons approved. 'I really wanted to put together my New Mexico world in a book that I essentially had control over with design and layput, especially with a designer, David Skolkin, who had seen my vision,' Parsons said.
          "Parsons has a knack for capturing the picturesque. Casual readers of the book may mistake the images as fare for travelers, but, taken as a whole, Dark Beauty records a much more rural New Mexico that has vanished as the state has become more urban and its economy has grown. In Parsons's photos, metallic green lowriders brighten the streets of an unpaved village, chipped and worn 1950s Studebakers slice their way down rural roads, and horses run free through the streets of northern pueblos.
          "Despite the eclectic mix of photos, the images are arranged to have their own narrative quality...These narrative links are the reasons Parsons has always favored books as an outlet for his photography...[And] the story he has to tell in Dark Beauty is one of loss. 'It's about people and places that are just disappearing. They represent a time that has been lost, people who have died, time that has gone on. When I first moved here, whoever heard of a gated community? Now the place is just full of them. In many ways, the democracy of living has disappeared.'"
—Casey Sanchez, The New Mexican, Pasatiempo

Paul's Bar, Ranchos de Taos

Horses running through Taos Pueblo