who's to say...

I have finally read an article I had been meaning to read for the last couple of weeks about a photographer named Edward S. Curtis. He is best known for photographing Native American Indians in at the beginning of the 20th century. His photos are iconic. They show noble “red men” on their horses or simply standing in their supposedly authentic garb. To me the photographs look too perfect to be truly authentic. It seems near impossible for Curtis to have gotten these pictures by simply standing around and shooting what he saw. The author of the article mentioned that he wondered how much money he gave to the Indians to get them to pose. I thought that was a funny and thought provoking. Also, did Curtis have any say in what they wore? Did he shape our ideas of how we see Native Americans? All of the Indians in his photos look like the stereotypical Hollywood Indians from the old westerns. Of course who is to see what is real or what is not. In my opinion I just don’t really believe that Curtis captured the vanishing Native Americans. He most likely captured peoples’ imaginations instead.