The New Mexicans

This remarkable visual record documents Kevin Bubriski’s two-year stay in New Mexico in the early 1980s. As a filmmaking student and young photographer fresh out of the Peace Corps in Nepal, Bubriski fully immersed himself in this new, vibrant, and multifaceted place. From film school, he moved on to a job as still photographer on the set of the film The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and then took on assignments as a local news photographer—work that would connect him to New Mexicans from all walks of life, both natives and newcomers to the state. With his camera always at the ready, Bubriski covered events from rodeos to mud wrestling matches to the solemn funeral rites of a murdered Santa Fe priest, always open to serendipitous encounters along the way. With the fresh eye of a newcomer to the state who had already explored remote corners of the world, Bubriski has created a moving and evocative record of a moment in time in the northern reaches of the Land of Enchantment.