Entry 4 – Documentary Photography

The subject of this week’s class was ‘Identity through Photography’. Within the photographs that were shown during the lecture, Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian series stood out to me. Curtis’s photographs reminded me of another photographer, Jimmy Nelson, who also embarked on a journey of documenting the lives of indigenous people.

Similar to Curtis, who recorded the Native Americans, Nelson captured the figures of indigenous people on a bigger scale – around the world. Nelson went on 13 trips to 44 countries and used his 50-year-old plate camera to complete his series of Before They Pass Away. He traveled to the hidden corners and inaccessible places to expose and preserve the appearances of these beautiful cultures before they no longer remain.

Unlike Curtis, Nelson had kept glimpses of modern objects, such as guns, buckets, and other industrial made household tools in his photographs. However, he intentionally shaped his subject matters in some of his photographs to meet the imageries he desired to produce. For instance, in some cases, he would ask the indigenous people to dress in their traditional outfits in which they perhaps rarely adopt nowadays. In other cases, he would persuade some groups of native people to travel to the nearest landmarks or uncommon places and asked them to pose in front of these sceneries for his photographs. 

I understand his intention of wanting to deliver something appealing, and his photographs are unquestionably stunning and sensational. But are these traces of reality all authentic? And I question if they are truly about the identities of these near extinct cultures? Upon the discovery of the making of Before They Pass Away, it changed how I initially regarded these photographs. I am not saying that Nelson’s photographs are in any way deceiving, but I personally think that they might be more about portraying what the world wanted to see then about how these indigenous people truly lived.

On a side note, a Native American descendent photographer, Matika Wilbur, is walking in the footsteps of Curtis. But this time, after a hundred years, her Project 562 is about capturing the truth and telling the stories of the “disappearing” race in America.

References
Nelson, J. (2011) Before They Pass Away [photographs]
  Retrieved from URL (http://www.beforethey.com/)

Wilbur, M. (2014, January 27). Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America [Video]

  Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JrRBQEQr3o