about Curtis’ work is that great photos must be spontaneous; in fact, most great photographers pose their work. Curtis endured financial, personal and physical hardship for over 20 years to complete his series. The admittedly “romantic vanishing races” images that are the most popularized are in fact but a small fraction of the photos in this series. Most are of people working, socializing, and going about their everyday business. Many are of artifacts, with no people around. And many are just great facial portraits. Dismissing the lot as propaganda or lies is uninformed nonsense.

is a lie in the same way that all art is a lie - it is a depiction of the real, not the real thing itself. As such it has a point of view and depicts its subjects in ways that the artist hopes are compelling to the viewer. Karnasiewicz rightly points out that photography is not an objective portrayal of its subject, but later criticizes Curtis for "failing" to do exactly that. In other words, to call Curtis's work a lie is gratuitously pejorative and inflammatory. It is profoundly disrespectful of the work of a man who underwent amazing hardships to give us the some of the very few images we have of a part of American history we will never have again.

Apart from his photographs, he also made audio recordings of the songs and ritual chants of many native American tribes which are the only surviving exemplars of those languages. Some of those languages would have been lost forever had it not been for Curtis, but, thanks to him, descendants of those tribes have been able to recreate and preserve those idioms. Perhaps for Wiggins and Karnasiewicz that is just more perfidy on Curtis's part, but some of us are more generous.

Yes, the photos are posed. Guess what kind of equipment Curtis was working with. That's right, huge cumbersome cameras with glass plates and chemical emulsions requiring lengthy exposure times. All this he carried by mule back over extremely rugged terrain, sometimes resulting in accidents that destroyed months of work. He couldn't do it any other way. It's so easy to criticize.

Wiggins demystifies the Curtis legacy in her own entertaining and masterful way in this fantastic book. She uses plausible fiction to fill in the historical gaps in his history. It is a really good read for all. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

The real ES Curtis legacy exists in a world today of postmortems using the eyes of a century, progression of technology, and ethnological correctness. Is this a fair lens into the past?

Edward S. Curtis, legendary photographer, What no Photoshop?

Curtis didn't use a Canon or Nikon SLR, but made his images with a 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 Premo reversible back camera. It had a 23" bellows, and a ground glass back. It took at least 15 minutes to set up a picture, and his fastest shutter speed was 1/100th of a second. He didn't have a "healing" or "cloning" tool, "sharpening", "curves", or "levels"... neither Photoshop nor the computer, or the CCD had been invented yet. My God! How did he do it?

For as much criticism as this man has received in the last century, it leads one to think that perhaps he did create a little magic. Perhaps he was on to something in the photographic world.

He helped bring photography into line with the great masters of the paint brush, as the age of photography was just beginning. The man was a self taught portrait photographer, and learned ethnology the same way.

The beginnings of the modern west certainly resonate in the works of Edward S. Curtis. His photos were made at a time when Indians already driven from their lands were being shorn from their cultures.

This history is very apparent in a film on Curtis's works, The Indian Picture Opera. In it, his images are explained in his own words. It's a re-creation of a 1911 E.S. Curtis lecture and slide show.

The film uses some of the many thousands of words of Curtis text that have been widely ignored. Most of the Curtis original prints have been torn from books and sold page by page... leaving much of the text behind. These words easily demonstrate his objectivity and reverence.

Did he romanticize Indians and the west? Yes, the same way American culture romanticizes everything today as well.

America is the world of pop-culture, where everything fits into a nutshell, even criticism. We manufacture it as if to romance it as well.

A journey into the past is always enlightening. Even though photography has been reinvented by digital, where we use layers and effects, remember... it's golden age was a century ago, the microprocessor and Photoshop weren't born yet.

Film Clip:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=371303786158405131