Shooting with a somewhat antiquated, yet still very-much-alive medium caused me to slow down my process of shooting and really consider the situation before clicking the shutter. These photos are a way to see into my experience of what I felt were some of the most important moments from our trip to the Navajo Nation.
“This May, I was one of 11 students from Winona State University who traveled more than 1,000 miles to the heart of the Navajo reservation in Tsaile, Arizona, to work with six Diné College students as part of an ongoing project to docuemnt the oral history and legacies of four elders in the Navajo community.”
The Navajo are a shy, quiet people, and some of the most generous, warm and personable people I have had the pleasure to work with. I am generalizing quite a bit about a population of nearly 300,000 souls, but the time spent, albeit brief, with my colleagues and interviewees opened my eyes to how kind a person can be, regardless of the injustices committed by the ancestors of my people to the ancestors of theirs.
On a day when my group wasn’t scheduled to meet with our elder, I accompanied another group on a trip to Chinle to be an extra hand while interviewing educator Peggy Scott. There were roughly seven of us on site; three members of the interview team, with the rest there to provide assistance. The interview took place inside Scott’s home, a modest space that quickly filled with her guests. To allow more space for the interview team to work, I stepped outside — and met Sterling, Peggy’s son.
Sterling was waist-deep in the engine compartment of a late-model Toyota Highlander, struggling to replace an essential piece, possessing a name too difficult to remember. So I decided to offer my help to a stranger who I believed might need it.
After interjecting myself into Sterling’s work environment, aside from responses spoken in courtesy, the flow of conversation was non-existent, corked by my ambition to lend a hand, regardless of any need. Side-eye glances were frequent, and I could tell that I was being analyzed.
This carried on for a while, but eventually I began noticing a change. The corner-of-the-eye glances were less frequent, and the conversation transitioned from the ailments of Peggy’s Highlander to Sterling’s son, grandson, and what it was like growing up on an Arizona reservation.
After the successful and stressful completion of an especially difficult task involving a car jack and an assortment of lumber scraps placed Jenga-like to lift the engine block, I had a new friend in Arizona, someone who had been a stranger an hour before.
Our group spent nearly three weeks in the high desert of Arizona and New Mexico, meeting the people, learning the culture, learning from each group’s elder, and for the first time in most of our lives existing as part of the minority. In that short period of time, we gained a brief understanding of the perspective of Navajo culture, and what it means to walk in beauty.
The phrase “walk in beauty” is a rough translation of a phrase often believed to be the soul of Navajo philosophy. After the first night in Tsaile, it was clear just how crude the translation of a complex phrase was. It’s hard to put in words the feelings I experienced while enveloped by green-topped golden red cliffs at Lukachukai, the dominating figure of Shiprock, the overwhelming presence of sage, the immense vastness of just about any landscape I set foot in.
Surrounded by such beautiful nothingness, I saw clearly how a place can be held so close to the heart by such a spiritual people.