PUBLICATIONS
Tibetan Mustang: A Cultural Renaissance
Hardcover
Photographers Kenneth Parker and Luigi Fieni present the cultural revival of Mustang, birthplace of Tibetan Buddhism where the ancient tradition continues in authenticity. This “last forbidden kingdom of the Himalayas” is now emerging as a beacon of community-directed art conservation and resurgent culture in a contemporary society.
The highly remote hidden kingdom of Mustang at the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau has been protected by Nepal since the late eighteenth century. Tibetan Mustang: A Cultural Renaissance celebrates this mythic region and customs through beautifully reproduced photographs that portray a unique and vibrant cultural revival. They document the ancient sacred temples that dominate the medieval walled capital of Lo Monthang by unveiling how centuries of deterioration have been reversed through a careful restoration project led mainly by Fieni. Over the course of 22 years, Luigi worked with the local Loba people, whom he trained in painstaking Western conservation methods, to repair damage and bring the cavernous interiors and magnificently detailed semi-precious mineral-pigment murals back to their original glory.
The restoration of these astonishing seccos has also helped drive a reawakening of ancestral Buddhist traditions, which the authors depict both visually and through accounts of the cultural and religious life of its colorful Tibetan inhabitants. The resulting volume is a celebration of one of the world’s most beautiful and extraordinary places, a model of initiative for how communities can conserve historical art while strengthening the cultural heritage and spirituality that have long flourished there.
The arresting photographs in Tibetan Mustang: A Cultural Renaissance, along with accompanying morsels of insightful text, illuminate the ongoing effort in a remote corner of Nepal to preserve a sublime, precariously endangered culture and the community it sustains. It’s an absolutely magnificent book.
— Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and Under the Banner of Heaven
There is no secret: if this book succeeds in capturing the magical surrealism of Mustang, it is because it’s the fruit of over 20 years of a passionate love story.
— Éric Valli, Academy Award nominated film director and photographer
This is an incredible book by someone who has lived the Loba life. Luigi and team gives you an authentic picture of Mustang, its culture and people. I am immensely grateful to Luigi, American Himalayan Foundation and the team who have worked relentlessly for more than two decades in the restoration of Jampa and Tubchen monasteries. I am proud to say their work has brought life back to our monasteries and turned it back into a spiritual haven for the people of Mustang. My father, the late King Jigme Palbar Bista, dreamt of seeing Mustang in its full glory while requesting AHF to help restore the monasteries, and now seeing monks perform religious ceremonies and pilgrims coming from all over Mustang, I truly understand that my father’s dream was — a cultural renaissance. This book is special for me and my family because Luigi is a local of Lo Monthang in true sense, he dances our dance, eats our food like it’s a delicacy, understands our language and culture, and most importantly understands us like a family.
— Jigme Palbar Bista, Crown Prince of Mustang
MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY
March 2024
A Different Lens
Memories may fade and landscapes change with time, but photographs freeze a unique moment in time. During the Carmel Art Walk, when art galleries and studios open their doors for the public to enjoy an array of art, Weston Gallery hosts a drop-in book-signing called A spiritual journey of Tibet and Yosemite through the lenses of Kenneth Parker & William Neill.
CARMEL PINE CONE
March 2024
New book showcases Tibet, downtown gallery welcomes Catalog Show
One of the artists showcased in a recent month-long exhibition at the Monterey Museum of Art, "Sacred Encounters," photographer Kenneth Parker has a new book out, and he'll sign copies of it Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Weston Gallery. Titled "Tibetan Mustang, A Cultural Renaissance," it includes images by Parker and Luigi Fieni and essays by Fieni and Amy Heller.
TRICYCLE
February 2024
Tibetan Mustang: The High Stakes and Living Practice of Monastery Maintenance
Carrying cables and Diva-Lites, landscape photographer Kenneth Parker takes another step up the mountain. He’s no stranger to demanding treks, having previously braved the glaciers of Patagonia and the jungles of Laos and Myanmar, but this 100-mile journey through the Himalayas takes the cake. At close to 13,000 feet above sea level, the hillsides are dusty and treacherous, the air freezing and increasingly devoid of oxygen. Yesterday, he slept in a tent. Tonight, among the livestock.
MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY
OCTOBER 2023
Dual Renaissance
It takes a full week of trekking, 12,000 to 15,000 thousand feet up, just to get to Upper Mustang – the secluded kingdom in the Himalayas that hides monumental, cavernous Buddhist temples with massive indoor murals that are treasures of the Renaissance. It was Italian and French masters that taught locals to do seccos, those frescoes of the dry and arid climate.
MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY
Best of 2021
Best Photo Gallery
The masters of traditional black-and-white photography come together at the Weston Gallery.
THE CARMEL PINE CONE
January 2015
The fine art of land and sea
Several of 20th century’s most iconic photographers are featured in an exhibit that calls attention to the natural beauty of Point Lobos State Reserve. Featuring images by Cole Weston, Edward Weston, Wynn Bullock, Kenneth Parker, Rolfe Horn, Brad Cole, Ryuijie and Peter Hughes, the show opened last week at the Weston Gallery.
MONTEREY HERALD
April 2014
Kenneth Parker Has Big Ideas
The Carmel-based photographer has been everywhere in the world except Africa and Antarctica. And he hopes to eliminate Antarctica from his bucket list in the near future. Parker’s large prints, often 24 inches by 30 inches, convey deep, rich colors. His photos include vibrant green Asian rice terraces, exotic sandstone formations in Utah, color-intense Tibetan murals, the intricate melding of stone and foliage at Point Lobos, Burmese temples at dawn, Incan and Mayan ruins, and intriguing canyons rich in golden light, to name just a few.
TEA TIME MAGAZINE
November 2010
Elemental Beauty: Photographs by Kenneth Parker
Traveling to remote, pristine wilderness around the globe, Kenneth Parker captures images that reveal the disturbing beauty of some of the world’s most mysterious and untouched places. The determined artist is known to haul 75 to 85 pounds of large-format camera equipment as he seeks out the perfect site location, often backpacking five to ten days into the wild. The farther he goes, the more he becomes immersed in a profound sense of place in his relentless attempt to discover beauty.
VIEW CAMERA
Jan /Feb 2009
Kenneth Parker: It Happens Best from a Stillpoint
Khalil Gibran wrote, "We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting." For me, beauty is an argument that refuses dismissal. It arouses a fire stirring dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul. I am forever listening so intently to my own inner voice.... like a melody softly soaring through my atmosphere. It brings opposites together.
POINT LOBOS MAGAZINE
Summer 2009
How One Photographer Experiences Point Lobos: Kenneth Parker
The first time I was exposed to the awe-inspiring Point Lobos was at the end of that archetypal cross-coun-try-family-car-trip-that-changes-your life, all the way back in 1963. Then elusively beckoning me back in 1977 while a transfer student at UCSC, Point Lobos was indeed destined to become my favorite local treasure power spot back then and especially now, privileged as I’ve been the past fifteen years to be living here in blessed Carmel.
SURVISON
May 2008
Sacred Places in a Small World
Ken Parker has this amazing job, the stuff of fantasies: he travels around the world, trekking and kayaking, photographing sacred spaces co-created by both humans and Mother Nature. Sometimes it's the Mother's hand alone that he gracefully exposes for us. All elements harmonize in his exquisite compositions, and his images etch themselves indelibly on your soul.
THE CARMEL PINE CONE
May 2008
‘Last Forbidden Kingdom’ on Display at Sunset Center
Windswept and nearly devoid of vegetation, the remote Nepalese district of Mustang is a place where fried yak dung and goat droppings serve as cooking fuel, where sheep horns hang over doorways to chase away evil spirits and where firewood is considered a sign of wealth. And yet Mustang is also home to a collection of ancient Buddhist art so impressive that Carmel photographer Kenneth Parker has made three trips there since 2003 to capture what he calls "The Last Forbidden Kingdom." An exhibit of Parker's photographs, Buddhist Earth: Sacred Places / Sacred Work, opens Friday, May 30, at the Center for Photographic Art. The gallery will host a reception from 6 to 8 p.m.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
December 23, 2007
Treating Mom to Art, Opera and Lots of Chilies
For almost 200 years, Santa Fe has been a site of pilgrimage. Every Good Friday since the early 18th century, believers have marched by foot, away from the center of town, with its Romanesque cathedral and rounded stucco buildings the color of roasted corn, toward El Santuario de Chimayo, the Lourdes of the Southwest, in the high-desert hills some 28 miles north.
THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN, PASATIEMPO
July 2004
Photographing the Mythical
California landscape photographer Kenneth Parker spent five months trekking through a land untouched by time, visiting 14th-century monasteries in Nepal, the mysterious temples of Angkor in Cambodia, cascading waterfalls and wonderlands of rivers in southern Laos and Buddhist temples from the ancient Myanmar culture in what is now Burma.
THE WASHINGTON POST
April 2004
Pound for Pound: Full Exposure
Behind these pictures stand some enviable deltoids – and lats and abs. Or so I'd wager after learning that photographer Kermeth Parker, whose color pictures hang at Ralls, lugs 80 pounds of equipment in a backpack every time he shoots a landscape.
VIEW CAMERA
July 2003
The Long Road Home
August 1, 1995 was not a good day for research oceanographer Dr. Kenneth Parker. Heand the rest of his laboratory colleagues had just been informed that their positions were all terminated, part of a nationwide budget cutback by their employer the Federal Government. So, at age 44 and well terrified, Parker finally did what had wanted to do so badly 20 years earlier. He shelved his career in science and fully committed himself to earning his living as a fine art photographer. “It was sink or swim, do or die”, he reflects.
THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN, PASATIEMPO
October 2002
Kenneth Parker: Practically Magic
Kenneth Parker speaks with modesty about his photographs and about his process of finding and making them, but the results are absolutely luminous depictions of fabulous places. Blue Varnish Wall, captured in a Utah canyon, shouts with psychedelic blues, violets and magentas, fleeting reflections of the sky. The epic scale of the piece was achieved by his climbing the opposite side of the canyon for perspective: What at first glance appear to be medium-size boulders at the bottom of the scene are three stories tall.
THE BUZZ, CHICO ENTERPRISE-RECORD
November 2002
The Light Fantastic: Photographer Kenneth Parker Treks Miles and Waits Days for the Perfect Shot
Unlike many photographers, Kenneth Parker doesn't take tons of photos hoping that one will ultimately work out. Instead, he waits for days until the timing is right and takes the one photo he knows will work. Parker gets most of his large-format, color landscape shots while backpacking in the wilderness. "That is 99 percent of what I shoot," he explained by phone from his home in Carmel. "So I'm lugging about 80 pounds in large-format-view camera equipment and then all the essentials for backpacking on top of that - you know, tents and food and clothing and equipment and everything.