Far Flung Places: The Photography of Barbara Sparks

Barbara Sparks's passion for photography began in 1959, during college, when she took an art tour of Europe. On that trip, her fascination deepened when a man--whom she would later marry--gave her Edward Steichen's book The Family of Man. Since then, she has traveled to such far-flung destinations as the Cappadocia region of Turkey; the Kali Gandaki River in Nepal; the Mayan villages of Guatemala; and the dusty, light-filled hill towns of Italy. A passionate naturalist, Sparks has also turned her camera on Colorado and New Mexico, revealing her fine-tuned and sensitive eye for light and people. A constant theme of indigenous cultures runs through this book. With a ringing clarity, Sparks focuses on definitive landscapes and how man assimilates.