Nov 15: Week in Photography

Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs.

📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸

Callaghan O'Hare / Reuters

This week, it feels like Americans are recovering from the emotional hangover that was the election, while the world is treating Donald Trump's refusal to concede like a tantrum. There are bigger things to worry about — cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing around the country, fueled by colder weather and family gatherings.

The United States is leading the world with positive cases, topping 150,000 new cases in a day this week, the highest number yet. Hospitals in North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Texas are at capacity. All of this is very alarming, but it also doesn't feel quite real. Most of the country is beset by pandemic fatigue — tired of talking about masks, tired of not seeing friends and family, tired of the grim news.

This photo, by Callaghan O'Hare for Reuters, is a rare image inside a hospital in the United States (more on why that is later). It shows both the hope that the public has that this illness will be "not that bad" and the constant efforts of medical workers, mostly behind the scenes, to save lives.

📸For Your 👀 Only:

WHAT IT'S LIKE IN WISCONSIN

I stumbled across the work of LA-based photographer Pamela J. Peters by accident, and what a delight. Her project, Real NDNZ Re-Take Hollywood stylizes contemporary Native American actors as classic Hollywood stars from the 1940s and 1950s, a twist on representation that both confronts the past and challenges the future.

How did this get started?

It evolved from my love of classic films. I feel like I was born in the wrong decade, I'm a big fan of the ‘50s and ‘60s era, especially with films. So to carry on the vision of that particular decade and having a deep admiration of watching old films, and having watched a lot of Western films with my father as a child, I always noticed the Indians were always depicted as savages, villains, and destined for death — a stereotype of a fear, a relic imagery that was mass-produced in films and in all facets of media. If you google American Indian, you still see these relic images. That is not who we are today. We are rarely seen as modern contemporary American Indians. Because I understand that and understanding that media has a powerful impact and can influence viewers, it was something I wanted to create as an artist — I wanted to make an immediate change.

Pamela J. Peters

I was influenced by George Hurrell, who was the master of Hollywood glamour photography. I was thinking, I really want to do a photography series where we can see contemporary Native actors as Hollywood icon actors, as opposed to the buckskin and face-painting, why not they are just as equally talented as these actors.

I've lived here in Los Angeles since the late ‘80s, and I've seen a lot of Indian actors who have come to Hollywood and tried to break into the industry. I would continue to hear them share that they get typecast, and some of them get frustrated and change careers. Additionally I’ve heard stories about how Hollywood seems to only believe that one performance can be created for American Indian actors. From years of hearing this, I wanted to counteract those racist, demeaning stereotypes in Western, period piece films and replace them with dignified images of actors, in a creative way, so that is how this project came to life.

I have a sweet dear friend who grew up in that era and who by default became my wardrobe expert and helped me get a lot of the clothes, and would say, “Oh, I remember this from back in the day, or from high school.” She shopped around vintage stores and was a creative assistant, and she helped me immensely.

How did you get into photography?

I’ve always loved photography, even when I was a kid. My parents had cameras, but they weren’t working because we couldn’t afford film. When I was 6 or 7, I used to play around and pretend that I was taking photos with my friends on the reservation and have them pose — it was like a game for me. I just always loved the art of taking photos. When I finished high school, I was not encouraged to go into the arts by my counselor, but I continued to enjoy photography and it became a hobby until I got older. The hobby transitioned into photojournalism where I was hired or asked to take photos at powwows, and community gatherings for some of the tribes, and gradually I shifted into doing these types of historical types of photography essays about changing the imagery and countering these negative portrayals of American Indians in mass media.

Pamela J. Peters

I didn’t like what I was seeing and reading about Native Americans in photojournalism stories. One in particular that really bothered me was a National Geographic story told through the lens of a white photographer about the Plains tribes. It was him “examining” a tribal community. Like, why is this white guy talking about us Indian people? It was the first time I heard the phrase “poverty porn,” and I did not like that. It was an exploitative story “for” the photographer, but it did not necessarily help the people and get the viewers to really understand the diversity and strong culture of the Plains tribes. Because of that, I want to use my Indigenous lens and share our culture and story in a respectful and dignified way. That is my sovereignty as a Native artist to tell our own stories.

I don’t like calling any of the folks in my projects “subjects,” because they’re participants. I like doing interviews on my shoots. I want them to participate, and I want them to not just share their image but also their voice, their story, their culture.

Is typecasting something that has shifted for Native Americans, in the way that it has for Black and Asian actors?

Honestly? No. I don’t believe it has shifted at all. Most of what I’ve been seeing, and a lot of what I captured in interviews, has become a conversation about who can play Native American. People have created this self-identified heritage. They have no connection to a tribal community. They have no connection to culture. They have no connection to a land base, but they are self-identifying like, Oh, yeah, well I have Cherokee blood. So it’s giving this false idea that we are being represented, and in reality, we are not. If anything, it is once again dismissing and diminishing American Indians from opportunities, from “participation.” Those real legit Native actors are who young kids on reservations want to see. Those are actors I wish I could have seen when I watched those old classic Hollywood films. Because I care deeply about “Native representation” I am very selective about the people that I have in my projects, they are all tribal individuals. More importantly, they are actors — actors that folks back home on reservations can see and connect with. We can really say, “Look, they look like us, they know us.”

Pamela J. Peters

Any final thoughts?

I want people to see us as modern contemporary Indians who are creative and beautiful, and to give us a chance to share our stories, because we do have many many remarkable stories to share.

My project is going to continue — watch out for a short video of Real NDNZ Re-Take Hollywood in 2021. I am planning to take more photos of Native actors in that classic Hollywood style, because we were totally out of that era in film history. And one more thing, within the title "retake," it has two folds — "retake" is to retake or rather re-create classic portraits of iconic movie stars of yesteryear with contemporary Native American actors, and then to “slate” retake and give participation and placement in Hollywood’s film history by adding Native actors — in a creative way.