Rappelling down a giant sequoia; celebrating Gordon Parks; the beginning of underwater photography
|  | Saturday, November 20, 2021 | | | | |
| In today’s newsletter, rappelling down a giant sequoia (and filming it); how Gordon Parks inspired so many; reversing stereotypical portrayals; … and how underwater photography changed. | |
 | PHOTOGRAPH BY MATIKA WILBUR
| | By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
“I’d like my work to be a tool to educate and help dismantle stereotypes that have plagued Indigenous peoples since Edward S. Curtis labeled us the ‘vanishing race,’” photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Tailyr Irvine says. “We haven’t vanished.”
Tailyr, who is Salish and Kootenai, referred to a photographer who spent decades exhaustively documenting Native Americans, but was guilty of avoiding aspects of horrid U.S. government treatment. He also had a static vision of Native Americans, staged scenes in a studio, and providing traditional clothing and jewelry to people he photographed. In 2012, the National Geographic Society, which had purchased a set of Curtis photographs nearly a century earlier, sold the set—and has used part of the proceeds to support emerging photographers.
We asked six photographers, all previously funded by the Society, to select an image and reflect on the importance of their culture. A consistent theme emerged: These photographers are using their work to dismantle stereotypes about Native Americans and to educate non-Native Americans and Native Americans alike. At top, Nat Geo Explorer Matika Wilbur photographs five fellow members of the Swinomish and Tulalip people in their Ch'a~lh wvn Srdee-yvn (Flower Dance) regalia in Tolowa Dee-Ni’, California.
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY TAILYR IRVINE
| | One of Tailyr’s ongoing projects looks at the blood quantum system, initially used in the early 1900s by the U.S. government to identify, regulate, and calculate the amount of “Indian blood” a Native American person possesses. From birth, blood quantum requirements can have major implications on a child’s future. (Pictured above, a six-week-old who, Tailyr says, may be greatly affected throughout life by the infant’s blood quantum status.)
Photographer Brian Adams, who is Inupiaq, is direct about his goals: “I try to expand views of Native American identity by resisting mythologizing Native American people, which anyone, even Indigenous people, can do if we aren't careful.”
He continues: “I grew up disconnected from my culture, and I feel grateful that I was able to connect to my culture as I got older, which for me, came through photography.”
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY TARA KERZHNER
| | The importance of connection that Brian notes also ran strong for others. Tara Kerzhner photographed Antoinette Peters, shown above, who is Coeur d'Alene and Nez Perce, while profiling multiple tribes across the state of Idaho. Before the project, her father advised Tara, who is of Nez Perce heritage, to put “her feet in the water,” look out at the land, and realize it was her people’s.
The advice resonated. The project became something more.
“Honoring Native people through photography,” Tara says, “feels incredibly significant in deepening my own Native identity.”
Read Tucker C. Toole’s full story for Nat Geo—and see other images the photographers chose—right here.
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| How underwater photography began: Well, the first image came in 1856, but it wasn’t for more than a century before a legendary camera changed our ocean view. The Calypso 35 mm camera, envisioned by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, opened up a new world, according to this Nat Geo video explainer. There still is plenty of room to discover, says physicist, inventor, and Nat Geo Explorer Ved Chirayath. He noted that 100 percent of Mars and the moon’s surface is mapped, but only about 7 percent of the ocean floor. (Note: The new Nat Geo documentary film, Becoming Cousteau, begins streaming Wednesday on Disney+.)
‘Always look for a different perspective’: A mentor gave that advice to Cheriss May—and the photographer has taken it to heart. A former newspaper designer, Cheriss turned to photography full-time after a layoff in 2010—and The Undefeated has this interview and display of her images. As Cheriss works, “I am thinking about someone reading the photo who can place themselves in that space to create a connection or a conversation with the person in the picture,” she says.
A prize-winner: Nat Geo contributing photographer Muhammad Fadli has just won the book of the year category at the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. Muhammad’s The Banda Journal, with writer and folklorist Fatris MF, tells the story of a tiny Indonesian archipelago that has had an outsize role in global trade and the modern economy. More here.
A trailblazer: In 1956, Gordon Parks photographed scenes in Mobile, Alabama, with the classic composition that resembled Norman Rockwell’s paintings. But something was different in Parks’ America—the well-dressed Black woman and her niece stood outside a neon sign announcing “colored entrance”, for example. Parks, Life magazine’s first Black staff photographer and later a film director, is the subject of an HBO documentary focused on his investment in the humanity of the people he photographed, the Guardian reports.
R.I.P. Mick Rock: Known as the “Man Who Shot the Seventies,” the photographer captured iconic images of artists like David Bowie and Blondie—and later, Snoop Dogg and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “He was a photographic poet—a true force of nature who spent his days doing exactly what he loved, always in his own delightfully outrageous way,” a statement on his official Twitter page read. He was 72, Rolling Stone reports.
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| Heading down: “Rappelling from a 300-foot giant sequoia is a feeling like no other,” says Keith Ladzinski. “I shot this quick clip while rapping down after an unforgettable day in the canopy with sequoia ecologists.” Yes, he was “working”—on assignment for an upcoming Nat Geo story on understanding how heat and drought from climate change affect these giants.
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| This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Heather Kim, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading! | | | |
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