$45.00 U.S. (trade discount)
No e-book has been authorized.
Hardcover/PLC
160 pages with 110 color images by the author
12.0″ x 10.75″ landscape
ISBN: 978–1–938086-96-0
Published in November 2022
Distributed by Casemate/IPM
www.casemateipm.com
Published in association with the
Center for the Study of Place.
Events and Exhibitions
February 14 – March 14, 2026
Janet Russek + David Scheinbaum:
Giverny
Pie Projects Contemporary Art,
Santa Fe, NM
Saturday, January 19, 2023
Photographer David Scheinbaum in conversation with Stuart Ashman in-person or livestream on Zoom (recorded here)
Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Santa Fe, NM
Saturday, November 19, 2022
Book Release and Signing
October 29 – November 26, 2022
Exhibition
Pie Projects, Santa Fe, NM
Highlighted as an important new book in photography by Publisher’s Weekly.
Interview with author and review of the book (Lenscratch 2023)
by David Scheinbaum
essay by BJ Miller and historical vignettes by Diana Eck
Varanasi, also known as Kashi and Banaras, is a city in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh dating to the 11th century B.C.E. Regarded as the spiritual capital of India, the “City of Light” draws Hindu pilgrims who bathe in the Ganges River’s sacred waters for prayer and ritual. In Varanasi, one is in some sort of time warp where one is living in history as if time has never stopped, where both residents and pilgrims, continue their daily practices and worship in ways relatively unchanged for millennia, a continuum of thousands of years. Being in Varanasi is like being on a thread pulled from a cloth that dates back to the beginning of time. Here, one doesn’t “see” a ruin, as one does in other ancient civilizations, but discovers a living city where history hasn’t stopped.
David Scheinbaum guides us, with his camera, through the city’s winding streets that are filled with thousands of shrines and temples at virtually every turn. He takes us on an incredible visual journey to the Ganges, the sacred river where bathers are in prayer, and to the funerary Ghats, steps that lead down to the river where cremations take place, filling the air with incense and burning pyres. Hindus believe that being cremated along the banks of the holy Ganges allows one to break the cycle of death and rebirth and attain Moksha (salvation), making it a major center for pilgrimages.
David Scheinbaum’s beautiful, soulful photographs present an ancient, holy city immersed in prayer. And contributions by Diana L. Eck and BJ Miller, noted scholars and writers, shed light on the special qualities that make Varanasi the holy city it has always been, including the powerful embrace of life and death.
About
About the Author
David Scheinbaum is former Director/Chair of the Photography Department in the Marion Center for Photographic Arts at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and Professor Emeritus at the College of Santa Fe. He is the author of Bisti (University of New Mexico Press, 1987), Miami Beach: Photographs of an American Dream (Florida International University Press, 1990), Stone: A Substantial Witness (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006), and Hip Hop: Portraits of an Urban Hymn (Damiani Editore, 2012). He and his wife, Janet Russek, have collaborated on three other projects: Ghost Ranch: Land of Light, Photographs by David Scheinbaum and Janet Russek (Balcony Press, 1997), Images in the Heavens, Patterns on the Earth: The I Ching (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2005), and Remnants: Photographs of the Lower East Side (Radius Books, 2017). Together they operate Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd., fine-art photography dealers and consultants in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
About the Contributors
BJ Miller is an American physician, author, educator, and practicing hospice and palliative medicine physician who is well known for his 2015 TED Talk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life?” He has taught at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, since 2007. In film, BJ is the subject of Netflix’s Academy Award-nominated short documentary, End Game, by veteran directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. His book for approaching the end of life, A Beginner’s Guide to the End, was co-authored with Shoshana Berger (Simon and Schuster, 2019).
Diana L. Eck is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies and Frederic Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society at Harvard University. She is the author of Banaras: City of Light (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (Anima Books, 1981), and India: A Sacred Geography (Harmony Books, 2012). As the founder and director of the Pluralism Project, she produced the Web-based resource On Common Ground: World Religions in America. On the subject of pluralism, she has written Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras (Beacon Press, 1993) and A New Religious America: How a “Christian” Country Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (Harper San Francisco, 2001). In 1998, she received the National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton for her work on religious pluralism in America.
Praise
“What a beautiful and moving book this is! In it, David Scheinbaum gives us vivid, intimate, stirring, contemplative photographs and personal reflections of life in Varanasi. He brings us to this incomparable, special place where the expansive range of human experience finds expression. We see why he, when in Varanasi, feels a pervasive inner peace within the complexities of life and death. Diana Eck’s informed and illuminating vignettes invite us into a sense of the history and inner meaning of this holiest of places. And BJ Miller thoughtfully reflects on the mystery of death, a mystery that life in the City of Light itself so fully and prayerfully embodies. Varanasi is indeed a remarkable book.”
—William K. Mahoney, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies, Davidson College, and author of The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination
“Varanasi is visually compelling and beautifully written. David Scheinbaum’s delivery is elegantly complete with his photographs standing alone in their intimacy with the subject of prayer. His annotated visual notes as well as BJ Miller’s essay and Diana Eck’s reflections give an even greater appreciation of the material in this superb book. Varanasi is an extraordinary achievement.”
—Martha A. Strawn, Professor of Art Emerita, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and author of Across the Threshold of India: Art, Women, and Religion
“David Scheinbaum’s remarkable photographs of Varanasi bring us to a place that is simultaneously eternal and contemporary. They show people that, at times, seem as familiar as those we might encounter on a morning walk or commute, as if humanity is peering back. But this is Varanasi, where the returned gaze is especially raw and wondrous, challenging and tender. Scheinbaum presents us with kaleidoscopic views of extraordinary contrasts: life and death, fire and water, the sublime and the ordinary. The dreamlike pictures seem almost otherworldly. In Varanasi, Scheinbaum has captured the pulse of India’s holy city. I am grateful for his gift and find his book profoundly moving.”
—Christopher Jordan, Associate Professor of Photography and Digital Studies, University of Alabama, and author of Nowhere in Place
“The book is centered mainly around the ghāts (riverside) of the Ganges, considered holy by the Hindus. Scheinbaum has an eye for details and strives to present sacred rituals without a colored Western lens. From the image of a sadhu meditating on the ghāts to pilgrims performing suryanamaskār (saluting the Sun), he has meticulously portrayed the essence of the spirituality surrounding the river. He takes us into the narrow alleys to show the locals’ lifestyle alongside the revered wandering cows.
The photographs of women performing the rituals of Chhath Puja are a major highlight in the book. The vibrant colors of the festival are enhanced by the sindoor (vermilion) on the forehead of women who stand mid-waist in the river. The significance of the river is implied in every scene.
In conclusion, the image of the tilted Ratneshwar Mahadev temple gives a mystic touch to the book. It is a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva that is submerged underwater throughout the year but stands unharmed. The last picture is that of a statue at Pisāch Mochan, where people perform rituals to appease the souls of their dead ancestors. The cycle of life and death continues, and so does the relationship between the living and the dead. In this book, Scheinbaum has captured the rich civilization that emerged on the banks of the Ganges. Anyone interested in Varanasi or Indian culture in general should consider consulting this book. It will serve as an introduction to the city, its culture, and the scenic beauty of the ghāts.”
—Ragini Mishra Banaras, Hindu University, for the Journal of Folklore (read the full review here)
Slide Show
My Place
My Place has always been the darkroom. Soon after our quarantine began in March 2020, I embarked on a new body of work that I hoped would take me through the COVID-19 pandemic. Olivia, my granddaughter, was unable to return to school and began spending more time with my wife/partner, Janet, and me. After a few weeks of observing me disappearing into the darkroom for a few hours a day, she asked if she could come in with me.
I agreed and suggested that she bring something with her with the intent of making photograms. After making her first few photograms, she expressed interest in making prints the way I was making them, by brushing chemistry onto the paper rather than immersing the paper into the chemicals.
That is when our collaboration began. Olivia chose all of the objects, placing them on the paper herself and then engaging the enlarger timer. Although I handled all the chemistry, she stood on a stool beside me at the sink, directing my hands and telling me when she felt the photogram was finished. To my amazement and delight, after two or three times she had already learned the names of the chemicals, what each of them does, and basically grasped the technique and theory behind my darkroom practice.
While making each image, Olivia would tell a story about the picture. Like many children, she was very interested in dinosaurs, and many of her images relate to that interest. The dinosaurs were her friends. This project started at about the time she was turning four and was becoming aware of her “own” self and relationships with family and friends.
This is momma T-Rex.
She loves to race with her babies and she splashes in puddles with her kids.
She likes to play with Stegy Stegosaurus.
She likes to protect her babies.
She protects them from the wicked dinos.
And they jump on couches a lot.
In the days that followed, after the prints were dried, Janet would sit with Olivia and transcribe her stories and descriptions of each image, thus creating the text for her photograms. This collaboration has added new dimensions to our grandparent-granddaughter relationship.
Essay and photographs copyright © 2022 David Scheinbaum. All rights reserved.