Diana Vargas (USA, 1971) is a Colombian photographer whose path in the visual arts began in 2020, during the pandemic. What began as a way to document everyday moments soon evolved into a deeper exploration of photography as a creative language.
That same year, she participated in contemporary photography workshops with Argentine photographer Inés Miguens. Through these sessions, she was introduced to conceptual and contemporary photography and began developing a more intentional and personal approach to image-making.
Over time, she developed a particular interest in themes such as impermanence, fragility, and transformation. Influenced by the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, her work explores how light, texture, and form can bring attention to what often goes unnoticed. She sees photography not only as a technical process, but as a way of seeing—of finding meaning in small details and quiet moments.
In 2024, she received the Julia Margaret Cameron Award, an international recognition for women photographers, and exhibited her work at the FotoNostrum Gallery in Barcelona. In 2025, she presented a new series at Joyería Schumacher in Bogotá, where her photographs were displayed in dialogue with high jewelry pieces.
Her series “What Darkness Reveals” is composed of black-and-white images that capture leaves and flowers in different stages of transformation, carefully lit to reveal texture and contrast. The images are printed on high-quality metallic fine art paper, which enhances depth and gives the work a distinct visual impact. Each photograph also incorporates a golden texture, photographed from fine art paper and layered during post-production, adding subtle brilliance to the composition. The series invites the viewer to slow down, observe, and find meaning in what is fragile, imperfect, and transitory.
She continues to work on new photographic series and exhibition projects from her home in Colombia.