BEN LARRABEE

www.benlarrabee.com

risd connection: BFA in Photography, 1967

talent: Larrabee has the uncanny ability to focus on “moments of grace that no one else sees,” using his camera to capture everyday epiphanies of life in lush black-and-white photographs.

breaking in: Larrabee was a graphic design major at RISD when he met Harry Callahan and “stepped into another dimension,” switching majors almost on the spot. But after graduation, fear of failure and the pressures of a post-grad marriage threw photography on the back burner for almost three decades. “I couldn’t figure out how to make a living at it,” he says, whereas graphic design had a built-in market. But in 1993, things began to change. “Suddenly all my corporate clients dropped out of sight. Every project fell apart at the last minute. My wife was sick and I had a one-year-old son. It was bizarre.”

getting there: A practicing transcendentalist with active Quaker roots, he reacted to these “miraculous coincidences” by ratcheting up his spiritual quest. His Buddhist nun sister introduced him to a Tibetan Rinpoche and he discovered the “follow your bliss” philosophy of mythologist Joseph Cornell. Suddenly, the idea of reclaiming his lost love of photography seemed less absurd. At age 53, with encouragement from family and friends, Larrabee cut the corporate cord and began to pursue “the thing I was always meant to do.”

making it: He zeroed in on his first subjects just outside his door in Darien, Connecticut – in a misty tree, a neighbor’s house or a walk around the block at 2 am. Local exhibitions and strong reviews subsequently brought teaching requests from after-school and adult education programs; he now donates 25 percent of any instructional fees to charities and school fund-raisers as a way of “using my talent to serve others.” Since becoming the photographer he was always meant to be, Larrabee has had work acquired by MoMA, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the High Museum in Atlanta and the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY.

average day: … meditating… spending several hours in the darkroom working on a new print… walking outdoors with an eye for a good shot… preparing to teach an evening class for adults…

discoveries: His true guru will always be Callahan. “Harry taught me that my world had value. The way I was, the way I saw the world – that was the material to work from.”