the identification of “emerging” will always come into question for sure…do we do “beginning emerging” “mid level emerging” or “advanced emerging”…Danny is surely advanced emerging….the “emerging” status is generally self policing…we have never had a truly established photographer enter for the EPF grant…because you know Iowa and Danny well, for you he may seem more advanced than the jurors think of him..or me…despite his impressive track record so far, for me , and for the jurors (who may disqualify anyone), he is emerging…

You speak of putting aside romantic notions. In his truly wonderful image of the horse-rider and that very mysterious and potent image of the Calvary and the Lakota of old, Danny took the romantic and the esoteric to their finest honed edge. I cannot overstate my admiration for these two photographs. He countermanded this with a much harder edge, which is fine, except that it comes across almost as though these conditions constitute everything when in fact the story and picture is much broader and larger.

I had a post disappear an hour or so ago when my laptop overheated and shut down, maybe a good thing, I’ll try to be more brief.

I have no issue with any of your points, particularly about the humour, generosity, and loving nature you experienced on the reserve.

My perspective is different from yours. My family are card carryin’ Metis. Metis are an officially recognized aboriginal group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9tis_people_(Canada)

I have worked for Native organizations, as do my brother and sister to this day, my sister is completing a doctorate in Native studies at the moment.

Unfortunately, while we witness the love etc. among native people, much more obvious, from within or as an observer from outside, is the drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, nepotism and exploitation, gang violence, petty jealousy and political in-fighting, a work ethic at odds with the 21st century. I could go on and on.

Frostfrog, I am one who laments here frequently about the negative tone evident in much of what we see. Yes, I’d love to see Danny dig deeper and find the “real” Lakota. Their soul, our common humanity. Meantime, we cannot deny the reality of the situation as it presents itself. I believe Danny’s photographs have an undercurrent that perhaps points the way.

I hope the Lakota themselves see this work and can perhaps be shocked enough to take a deep breath and begin to look inward. Change and healing can only come from inside the Native community. No amount of outside help or big whacks of money thrown at the problem will make any difference. It’s time to put aside romantic notions.

I fear I have started an argument I lack the strength to finish, but, briefly, I will move back 40 years in time and just a bit to the east and north of Pine Ridge to the day when I first drove onto the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation and saw the place for the first time. It was a frightening sight to see. I wondered how I was ever going to survive there.

Yet, It looked very different to me when I drove away 13 months later to go off to another reservation. So very, very, different. It had been a tough 13 months with a stunning amount of trauma and death, but in that time I had gotten to know every family – in many cases, intimately. I had experienced not only the trauma and heartache but the spirit, generosity and humor of the people. I had felt their love, care, and compassion.

And don’t forget, one way or another, be it L-48 or Alaska, this is where my life has been spent ever since. I have heard the argument you make 1000 times… 1000 times 1000. I hear the very same argument used against impoverished and prosperous Native communities alike. It is not without its shreds of truth, but it is superficial. There is so much it bypasses, fails to grasp. It represents a perspective formed in one culture that has sought to dominate all other cultures, a culture from which the larger perspective cannot be grasped nor understood, without yielding some ground regarding certain American orthodoxies and tenants.

I hope I made it clear that I do believe Danny has the vision, talent and character to pull it off, and to find the Lakota people of today. I could say much more, but I have started a debate that I lack the stamina and energy to finish right now. If I ever succeed at packaging my life’s work, my responses will all be there.

The “real” people? I don’t know, these people look pretty real to me.

The issues on American reservations are pretty much the same as on our Canadian reserves. Part of the problem is the trap of the reserve itself, and the spoon feeding parent-child relationship between government and status aboriginal people.

80% un-employement? yes same up here. Very close by where I live there are reserves adjacent to medium size cities. 80% un-employement on the reserves, but less than 10% for the non-native population, many of whom are immigrant people of colour who may lack education and english language skills, but have a willingness to work.

Maybe the “real” Lakota do exist beneath all this, somewhere in the deep memory. I think this essay alludes to it. But the exterior, what we see here, is pretty right on from my experience.

In my opinion Danny Wilcox is one of the finest photographers around and I have great admiration for him and his work. He includes some stunning and even mystical pictures in this essay. How in the world, Danny, did you take #16? How is it possible to photograph bushes and trees and therein capture so ghostly an image of the seventh calvary bearing down upon the Lakota? How did you do this? Was it by chance, or did you see those images out there in the sticks and know that if you put on just the right amount of blur, this is what would come through? I think it is very great that got such an image, because so many people always like to look so disapproving at Native peoples today and to say, “they’ve got to put the past behind them.”

But that past is always there, and you caught it, riding through the wind, trees and bushes.

This essay is rich in mystical images, interjected with a few slivers of reality. Maybe this is what you are trying to achieve and if it is, then you seem to be succeeding. From my standpoint, however, if you are doing an essay on the Lakota of today there is a most important element missing:

The Lakota of today.

The Real People. They are missing. They just aren’t here. They’re not. They are missing. Go back and find them. Despite the depredations they have suffered and the poverty that has engulfed them, they have not disappeared. They are still here. Go back and find them. Please don’t give me a stereotype of the run-over and downtrodden Indian. The real Lakota, with heart and spirit, remains and fights on. Go find him. You are a fine and exceptionally gifted and hard-working photographer. You can do it.

My grandfather was a construction foreman for a company (L.E. Meyers) that built those towers for high tension power lines that you see all over the midwest, the ones that look kind of like a dog wearing a hat. He moved every year or so and like everyone in his field back then lived in a mobile home that was truly mobile. The trailer parks of Iowa were my second home as a child. My earliest memory is of Muscatine. Every summer after that was an even smaller town even further west of the Mississippi. Because of that, unlike most people, I don’t have a negative attitude toward people who live in trailer parks. Maybe it’s changed, but back then they were generally either hard working decent people or nice old retirees. Anyway, point is, I have a great affection for the small towns of Iowa and much of Frazier’s work resonates with those memories.

Also, I studied photojournalism in college and my goal was to do similar work. Aesthetically, I loved that kind of gritty black and white photography and intellectually I wanted to do good in the world by showing the dark places in the country that typical Americans are unaware of or choose to ignore. That’s the other reason I like Frazier’s work so much. It represents an old ideal on a path not taken. I’m glad to see someone doing it so well.

But, I think it’s because Frazier’s work is so close to my old ideal that causes me to be so critical of its flaws. Or to be fair, what could arguably be its flaws.

My first reaction on seeing his Detroit work was something along the lines of “Oh no, yet another essay showing how totally fucked those poor black people are.” I didn’t come by that attitude through my upbringing in Iowa and other small midwestern towns. I’ve led a very urban, integrated existence for quite awhile now and tend to see that kind of thing through the eyes of Africans and African-Americans. Of course, I can’t speak for any large group of people, but that attitude is consistent among the small group of people I interact with everyday. At the time, I showed the Detroit essay to several people whom I figured would have that reaction and they had that reaction. Many blacks are really sick of seeing white photographers come into their communities and portray them as totally fucked up. So when I saw the essay on the Sioux, part of my first reaction was “Oh no, yet another essay showing how totally fucked up the Indians are.” Now I’m very afraid of what we’ll see when the work from the poorest county in Mississippi comes out.

Of course, those problems are real. Those communities are fucked up. More people do need to be aware of the horrors. Something needs to be done. And maybe there’s no way to depict those issues without rubbing some, even many people in a bad way. But, I think it’s something documentary photographers need to be acutely aware of and make every effort to mitigate. How does one do that? Well, every situation is different and I can’t claim to know anything about the Sioux, but I think the general problem with these essays that spur that “those people surely are fucked up” reaction is that they tend to be uncompromisingly grim. I think the solution is to show a more well-rounded picture. There must be something good about the culture. There must be some joy in the community. If not, fine. If so, then show it. Personally, I’ve found it impossible not to see good aspects in every culture I’ve ever encountered. To show them as totally fucked up requires editing.

Along those lines, I read a very good book recently that paints a well-rounded portrait of how fucked up American Indian communities are while simultaneously showing them to be not all grim all the time. “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie. Documentary photography is capable of capturing that kind of well-rounded picture.
And of course for historical understanding, “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee” is required reading. But, documentary photography simply cannot explain how people ended up as they are. Frazier’s essay would benefit by some strong accompanying text by a big time writer.

My second criticism of the Detroit essay was “Why Detroit?” Everybody does Detroit. From Guilden to Robocop, everyone knows Detroit is a mess. Why not Akron or Chicago or Saint Louis? Somewhere with the same problems that hasn’t been done so repeatedly before?

So again, I had the same response with this essay. Why the Sioux? Everybody does the Sioux. Everybody knows the Sioux are fucked up. Why not the Crow or the Blackfeet or the Tohono O’odam? Why not something different? Something that nobody, or at least nobody at such a high level has done before?

I realize the answer to that criticism may well be that one wants to be published and that publishers (and on a related note, consumers) prefer variations on familiar tales. If that’s the case; if to get the work disseminated it’s necessary to follow the footsteps, to go where many have gone before, then I’m okay with that. Maybe we need the work. Maybe we view the story as more important than our aesthetics. Maybe there’s some other reasoning why we choose not to attempt originality. Nothing necessarily wrong with that.

But, if that’s not the case, if a photographer of Frazier’s skills and stature could do whatever and still get the work disseminated, then I’d like to see him start blazing his own trail, telling us stories that haven’t been told.

On the positive side, I love the photography and the mixed presentation. The panorama photos work very well. Any number of pictures are gallery/museum worthy. And the larger story of rural poverty in America is compelling and surely one that needs to be told.

Again, Frazier is probably my favorite of all the emerging photographers. If it were otherwise, I probably wouldn’t bother with this kind of critique.

for me, this story is all about negioation…photographer and subject alike…splintered land, splintered light, ignite….

that fucking horseshoe aflight is a wing’d creature set asight….

god damn…..

hugs danny
b

Having met Danny in person at Look3 – he is a man who is almost always smiling – I now appreciate the optimism of his work which hitherto was beyond my grasp.