Scarlett Page is one of the featured speakers at The Photography & Video Show next month, taking place March 16-19 at the NEC in Birmingham England.
For the first 15 years of her life as a music photographer, Scarlet Page succeeded in making her mark without, as she says, “using my dad’s name to get on.” So adept had she become at keeping the name of her famous father to herself, that the picture editor of The Sunday Times commissioned her to shoot him without making the family connection.
That man is legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist and founder Jimmy Page. Scarlet has now chalked up nearly 30 years photographing rock stars, including her father’s contemporaries. Many feature in her book and exhibition Resonators, a collection of guitar heroes including Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler, Peter Green, Brian May and Jeff Beck to name but a few.
Naturally, I ask her if being the daughter of Jimmy Page has been a help or hindrance. Quickly, she answers: “I never went in there saying, ‘Oh, do you know who I am?’ It’s really not my thing. The only time that I did present myself as my dad’s daughter was when I was doing the Resonators project because it was
a way of introducing myself, and saying: ‘I’ve been a photographer for this long and, also, this is my father.’ I shot him almost last in the project as I wanted to do everyone first.”
In every other respect, Scarlet’s life as a photographer has followed the typical path of learning the craft the hard way, starting with a year as an assistant to Ross Halfin…
Scarlet Page is the daughter of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and the French model Charlotte Martin. She studied photography at the University of Westminster and worked the following year as an assistant to rock photographer Ross Halfin.
Scarlet shoots for major record companies, working with artists such as The Rolling Stones, Spandau Ballet, Brian Ferry, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stereophonics. Her first book, Resonators, in 2015, followed an acclaimed touring exhibition of her portraits featuring over 30 rock guitar heroes.
She is a member of the Association of Photographers’ women’s group, f22. In 2020, she was a winner in the Portrait of Britain Awards. She has worked extensively for charities including Teenage Cancer Trust, Scope, CALM, and Warchild.
I worked with him as an assistant, straight out of uni, for just over a year. It was when there was a lot of money in the music business, so a lot of flying around to amazing places, lots of cool new bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden. It was brilliant. He works really hard and what I learned was how to set things up, simply but quickly, and how to get the best out of any scenario. There was lots of heavy lugging, setting up the medium format cameras and lighting. It was hard work.
It was. I didn’t want to go into music photography at that point, but I used to shoot the gigs when he was shooting because, apart from loading film backs, there wasn’t much else to do. I syndicated some of those images and one of them landed on the back cover of a magazine. They started giving me work, so it was a natural progression.
I think Ross and I have very different takes on how we do things, and how we treat our subjects, and that’s what makes every photographer unique. He’s as much of a rock star as many of his musicians, I guess. So maybe he’s like a five-year-old too!
Yes, he has.
I’ve definitely got some smiling ones but it’s different for me shooting my dad because I’m shooting my dad! He is still famous as Jimmy Page,
but there is always that fine balance between photographing your dad and someone everyone knows as someone else. So, it’s always nice to capture something that isn’t the obvious. It’s like any portraiture – it’s always lovely to get something that isn’t a snap, it goes a bit deeper. Actually, he does laugh in photos!
When I did Resonators, where I photographed as many guitarists as I could, I was very aware that they didn’t have to be doing this. Yeah, it was my project and it was amazing that they were granting me access, so I would go into shoots thinking, ‘they don’t want this to go on for ages, we want to make it as quick and easy as possible, but come away with what I need’.
Photographing Paul McCartney I took nine frames, and that was all the time that I was going to get, but I was still so grateful that could happen. I’d built a whole trip to Los Angeles based on the possibility that the Paul McCartney shoot might happen, so it was a bit of a gamble, but it paid off.
I think having grown up in that sort of world I feel less intimidated. It’s not that I’m not affected by fame, but I’m not impressed by it in the same way. The only time that it did affect me was when I shot Duran Duran, because they were on my wall when I was 14! That’s a different thing because it takes you to that place where you were just so in love with them as a band.
As I’ve got older, I’ve realized I’ve always been quite professional in my approach and not so fanatical. I always show up to any job that I do feeling slightly apprehensive, but I always keep myself in check to make sure that I do a great job, whoever it is. I was asked by David Bowie’s people to shoot him, and it was nerve-wracking, but in a different way. It’s just that policy of professionalism, making sure that you can honor them and do right by them.
Well, he was being himself. I work with a band called Placebo, and he was quite close to them at that time, and it was just coming up to his 50th birthday. It was the late ’90s and he’d seen the work I had done with Placebo and requested me to photograph rehearsals for his 50th birthday tour. He was playing a special show at the Hanover Grand, in London. It was quite surreal, he said, “Do whatever you want to do,” which is quite a weird position to be in, a little bit daunting. They were rehearsing but I could set up on the stage, and set up lights on the stage.
Yeah, totally. And that’s very much how I think David Bowie was: always very respectful of other artists, a real gentleman. That was what was most unnerving: how respectful he was. That was like, “Now I really have to do a good job!”
I don’t shoot film any more. I still have all my film cameras, and there is a real trend to shoot film now.
It’s just a question of time. I always like doing projects. Even in lockdown I managed to do a project called Buddy, which kept me sane, and I would love to do a film project. I’ve always been a bit reluctant to do a book of the pictures that I’ve taken, but now that it is nearly 30 years of having been a photographer, I feel it makes sense. It wouldn’t just be me blowing my own trumpet. I’ve got a chunk of brilliant images that I’d love to put together.
Oh, I did try. It wasn’t that straightforward. If you Google top 100 guitarists of all time, there are not many females that show up, but I wanted to represent more women in the project. Bonnie Raitt was going to do it, but it didn’t work out. Viv Abertine, I was desperate to shoot, but she wasn’t available. Now, there’s people such as St Vincent or Courtney Barnett that I would have chased hard to be in the book.
It’s been great to photograph more women, and I still photograph bands. I just did the Taylor Hawkins tribute in London, which was incredible. I work a lot with Stereophonics and Placebo. I just love shooting people. It doesn’t matter who they are. When I shoot subjects that enrich me, I always learn something new, and that’s where I get my kicks.
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It was part of a collective for CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). I think there were five of us all contributing and doing things in our own way. I photographed six people, three were well-known, (Professor Green, Gary Numan, Frank Turner) and three were other guys who had been through a difficult time at some point, and I just wanted to keep it simple. But instead of my 85mm, I used a Lensbaby.
God, the older you get… and the focusing! It’s like using mini bellows, but I thought it would add something to it, and I don’t use that lens very often, but I thought it might be quite interesting. I was pleased with the results.
Yes, it has. My first camera was a Nikon FM2. I remember meeting Robert Whitaker, who photographed The Beatles. He was a friend of my mum, and photographed her in the 1960s, and seeing his old cameras was like a treasure trove. I don’t know which one he had but they were definitely old Nikons. So, I started with my FM2. There were a few lenses knocking about the house, which I borrowed, I think they were my dad’s. He had an 8mm, a real bulbous thing which I played with a bit, and a 24mm, all manual focus.
Yeah, he was, but I couldn’t find a body! There were some lenses knocking around and a 16mm film camera which I made a couple of music videos on as well, but that’s not my bag. It’s such a different thing to being a photographer where you take the pictures, edit them, everyone’s happy, the end. Whereas with video everyone is getting involved, and putting their oar in! After the FM2 I went to an F3, then F4, D2X, D3 and then the D810 for quite a while.
I’m such a good photographer with it! It makes me so amazing, it’s just brilliant. For such a long time, I hadn’t upgraded anything and I was quite happy with what I had, and a really old 85mm lens that I would use all the time. It’s not until you upgrade that you say, “Wow, this is so much easier, and I’m not missing a trick and everything is so sharp it’s just incredible.” I’m so glad that I got it.
I was a bit reluctant and I didn’t want to have one that felt like a toy. It needed to feel the same, but I had noticed when I shot a gig earlier in the year, before I got the Z9, that I was missing the action and having to overshoot to get what I needed, whereas now it’s just so different.
I’ve loved my D810 and my 85mm lens, but I’m appreciating the Z9.
I had to do a shoot the other day for an old friend, Fil Eisler, he’s a composer and writes film scores. He was recording at Air Studios, and previously I’ve had to hire a blimp to make the camera silent, but this time I was using the Z9, and it was a bit surreal to snap away while they were recording, The Z9 was so quiet on the film set, it was incredible.
I’ve got a 24-70mm, 70-200mm, and a 14-24mm.
Well, I need the 85mm. That’s what I need. I’ve never shot portraits with a 50mm, but a lot of people are telling me that the 50mm f/1.2 is incredible.
I have always had the 24-70mm and 70-200mm to do events or gigs. That’s the staple. The 14-24mm is just a bit of a luxury, say in live scenarios, to capture just a bit more, but if I am doing portraits I will revert to the 85mm. Like you say, I’ve been married to it. It doesn’t feel right if I’m doing it on the 24-70mm. It’s got to feel right, it’s all down to the weight.
Well, sometimes the color looks a bit crap! Sometimes, I just think this is going to work in black-and-white, or if I want it to have that timeless feel. There’s a picture that I took at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert where Dave Grohl is singing a very stripped-down version of Times Like These. He was very emotional and I think that it is quite a poignant image. Originally, it was used by the press in color, but then I made it into black-and-white, and I think that takes it into a different dimension of timelessness, like a classic.
I photograph every year the Henley Literary Festival and she was there. I did think I got quite a nice image of her. I was like, “Wow, she would have to be happy with that one!” The Henley Literary Festival is a brilliant family-run event, quite local to me, and it’s great to be part of a team. It’s nine very intense days where it’s like shooting a wedding every day for nine days, but you meet the most amazing people.
This year, there was Olivia Harrison one day and Patti Boyd the next. Again, it’s one of those Paul McCartney situations where I’m taking some pictures in front of a step, and repeat, but I’ve always thought it will make me happier if I can do some portraits, as well. I’m not a Theresa May fan, but I think it shows my finesse as a photographer!
I sell prints as well and quite often the black-and-white images have that sort of otherworldly feel. For example, I did some pictures of Amy Winehouse and I didn’t think too much of them. It was capturing her at a time when she was really happy, just before there was a shift, and when I made the image into a black-and-white, it gained so much attention. It was shot on my D2X in early RAW days, and it’s certainly not the most incredible quality, but it’s all about capturing and evoking feelings in other people, isn’t it? And somehow black-and-white photographs tend to do that.
I think you have to be quite diverse and show your enthusiasm. I feel that younger people of the now are quite bad at communication in that sort of old-fashioned way that we did. When I was assisting, I would always be thinking ahead of the game and what I can do, so you have to show willing and show your enthusiasm. And work on your personal projects! That’s the big one because most of the interesting things I’ve ever done I have set out to do myself, and they are always a great talking point that could lead to other possibilities.
Absolutely, that’s it, and having a bit of a plan. I’m a terrible business person, I just love taking pictures. I really love what I do but I could have done with having gone to business school. Creatives are usually pretty crap on that side of things!
This interview first appeared in N-Photo magazine. Scarlet is a headline speaker at The Photography & Video Show. You can find out about his talks at the Show website, and you can get 20% off tickets with our exclusive discount code.
You might be interested in the best Nikon cameras along with the best Nikon lenses – and particularly the best Nikon Z lenses designed for its mirrorless cameras.
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SALAMANCA — As winter fades, plans are underway for a new juried art market that organizers hope will blossom into a leading destination for years to come.
The Ohi:yo’ Art Market in planned for May 11 at Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino on the Seneca Nation’s Allegany Territory in Salamanca.
It is being presented by the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center, home of the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, and Visit Seneca Nation, the Nation’s tourism development arm.
“When the Seneca Nation of Indians opened the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center in 2018, part of our vision was to utilize the center as a true hub where we could celebrate and continue to grow public awareness of Native culture and traditions on a larger scale,” said President Rickey Armstrong Sr. “The Ohi:yo’ Art Market is an exciting step along that path.”
The juried market is open to all native artists from across Turtle Island, and the public is invited to attend. A $7,000 Best of Show award will be presented at the market’s conclusion.
The name Ohi;yo’, which means “beautiful river” in the Seneca language, refers to the traditional name for the Allegheny River, which flows through the Allegany Territory.
“We want native artists and our friends and neighbors from near and far to come together and join us in Ohi:yo’,” said Hayden Haynes, Director of the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center. “By sharing our creativity and works with one another, we can celebrate native culture and resiliency through artistic expression.”
The Ohi:yo’ Art Market builds on the success of a juried art show, established in 2018, which the Seneca Nation hosted for Haudenosaunee artists. By inviting all native artists to attend and participate, organizers hope to establish the market as one of the premier art markets in the northeast.
Artists and vendors interested in registering for the market are asked to contact the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center by email at info@senecamuseum.org.
Measuring 33,000 square feet, the Onohsagwe:de’ Cultural Center is inspired by native oral history and designed to guide and immerse visitors through a variety of exhibits, collections, educational programs and special events. The center is currently open six days a week.
For information, visit senecamuseum.org or call (716) 945-1760.
Did artificial intelligence technology take over photography? No, it hasn’t, and it probably never will. But here is how AI might have been helping you behind the scenes all along.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is perhaps the biggest buzzword in the world of photography and tech for 2023, and it continues to be a widely discussed topic in 2024. This stems from the fact that the industry has had mixed reactions about the emergence of AI tools for photography and raised the question of whether this kind of technology puts photographers’ jobs at risk. However, much of the alarm and resistance towards this kind of technology often comes from photographers who have not fully understood what AI actually is and what it actually does. The discussion on that can go way too deep into technicalities, but for the benefit of a simple discussion, let’s start by saying that AI will not mean robots will be taking over our jobs.
The video below is a discussion among myself, landscape and travel photographer Elia Locardi, and portrait and wedding photographer Jiggie Alejandrino, where we talk about how AI has affected our post-production workflow.
AI comes in various forms that have current applications in a photographer’s workflow. But from a wider perspective of technology, artificial intelligence can be seen as just a more advanced and more intricate level of computing processes that can be applied to anything and everything we do on digital devices. In a sense, the technology is not new at this point; at most, it has just matured to become more capable. AI was introduced in smartphone cameras at least seven years ago as a form of enhanced image processing through scene detection and local adjustments. This early form of AI in smartphone cameras was an improved version of the automatic mode that almost every camera has. It offered better metering and color processing through scene detection, which in effect just made it easier for smartphone photographers to take better photos without having to edit or refine so much as it uses cues to detect the scene and match applicable settings and adjustments for the detected scene. In recent months, AI-backed editing features have been made on smartphones, such as Samsung’s new S24 series, where one could easily remove objects and even subjects from the photos taken by the phone.
In conventional interchangeable lens cameras, Sony introduced AI processing in its focusing system, which first appeared on the Sony A7RV. From personal use, it was apparent that this form of AI boosts the capabilities of the processor to detect and track the selected subject through eye-AF tracking. Instead of simply detecting where the eye of the subject is and subsequently focusing on it, the AI processor is now able to predict and anticipate the motion of the moving subject to be able to track and focus faster, thereby reducing the probability of missing focus on some frames. This has been made available on other cameras that were released after it and is also now being offered by other camera brands.
On the other hand, AI takes more diverse forms in post-production. Various tools have emerged that introduce AI processes into different steps of post-production. Some tools use AI to automate the process of developing raw images. These tools use AI-powered scene detection to apply exposure, color, and contrast treatment that is appropriate for the specific shot. Some tools use AI to detect commonly removed skin elements in the retouching process to reduce the amount of time spent editing portraits. Some tools offer exponentially greater precision in cloning out and filling in identified spots on a surface.
What needs to be said about AI in editing is that almost none of these tools are actually new. For decades now, photographers have been using tools like content-aware fill, which is just a more intuitive version of older tools such as the heal tool or the patch tool. With smarter AI capabilities, this has now evolved into the remove tool, which is just a much smarter version of the earlier tools that is more effective in preserving the details and continuity of visual elements that it is being used on.
As a landscape and architectural photographer, I personally experienced having to trace out the sky in images using tools like the pen tool, the magic wand, or the lasso tool for hours on a single image just to be able to selectively edit them or blend in a new sky. In the past couple of years, this was made easier by a smarter “select sky” option or a semi-automated sky replacement module that allowed the user to select any image and use it as the sky on the photo being worked on, and that includes images (supposedly) legally acquired to be used for that purpose. This ultimately automated the process that used to take hours and compressed it into a few seconds. Now with the use of those tools and with generative fill, the process is made much more efficient and infuses options generated from what are supposedly consensually referenced images. All of that said, all of these were technically possible with Photoshop in the past; the difference lies in the speed and precision with which the tasks are performed.
Perhaps the form of AI that causes much of the worry would be the generative form of AI that has the ability to create illustrations either as standalone images or as part of a photograph that is being edited. It is undeniable that there have been instances where AI-generated images were maliciously used in photography competitions. There have also been instances where commercial campaigns were called out for using AI-generated illustrations, specifically for brands that sell tools for digital artists. It is undeniable that, in the wrong hands, AI can be used to cheat, mislead, or undermine photographers and, on a larger scale, it can be used for spreading disinformation.
However, at this point, it does not seem like AI tools can do anything that human creatives cannot. If anything, they can only do them faster but not necessarily better. The core of AI is to emulate human responses to automate what was previously only doable by human work, but it seems (at least from how I see it) that the effect of what is done with AI depends entirely on the intention of whoever creates with it or whoever uses the images. That then simplifies this sophisticated artificial intelligence technology created from learned neural responses as merely a tool. In the same way that a hammer can be used both to build and to destroy, AI tools, from this perspective, remain to be what they are — tools. This is where laws, regulations, and ethics need to step in; to prevent this new tool from being used to cause the same old harm that we have been preventing in the past.
The possibilities that come with AI are endless and almost impossible to bind, as with any other form of advancement in technology. It can definitely lead to unfortunate circumstances when used improperly, which is where the importance of human intervention, regulation, and government steps in. When it comes to how generative AI can be used for malicious things, it is up to us collectively to step in and prevent this.
On the other hand, AI tools in photography do offer a lot of possibilities. As with any other tool, AI can offer much better efficiency in our work as photographers. In-camera, AI has been helpful in minimizing the role of luck and increasing precision in our cameras. In post-production, AI tools can offer to do days’ worth of work in only a matter of minutes if properly used and prompted to achieve the correct results. Any photographer who shoots raw can be spared from hours of raw developing or using presets that still need refining, but this can only happen if the photographer has developed a consistent style and intentionality. Portrait photographers can now more efficiently retouch their subjects based on their style, preference, and the extent of processing they choose. Commercial photographers can now do everything they’ve been doing on Photoshop for the past couple of decades with much more precision while only taking a minuscule fraction of the time.
As a landscape photographer, I can say that in some way of looking at it, landscape photography was as seemingly threatening as AI is now to landscape painters and visual artists before the dawn of photography. However, there seems to be barely any conflict between landscape painters and landscape photographers because the demand for either of them is just based on the preference of an entirely different audience. At the same time, as an architectural photographer, the most constant challenge is getting a client to spend more for photography of the actual structure instead of just using the already-available design perspective that was there way before the building was erected. In this case, it doesn’t seem like AI-generated images will be any more of a threat than other ways of illustrating an architectural project.
For portrait photographers, wedding photographers, event photographers, even more so, do I personally believe that authenticity, specifically the value of having genuine images of a person or event, probably won’t decline. AI, specifically generative AI, will definitely cause and actually has caused ethical dilemmas in terms of the crisis of disinformation and misinformation, but overall, photography is the art form that has the most potential to uphold truth and authenticity even in the age of advanced technology, for as long as the line between art and documentation is clearly maintained.
But for an individual photographer, with this not-so-new advancement in technology, and with human intervention factored in, AI tools offer two options. We can either spend less time editing so that we can take in more clients and shoot more, or we can spend less time editing so that we can spend more time for ourselves outside of work. If anything, this might be a reminder that most of us probably started learning photography for the sake of taking pictures — not editing them, so technology is now offering to take the bulk of that (still) necessary step of the process so that we could focus on the creative aspect.
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Lily Gladstone made history this year as the first Native American nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, for her starring role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. A win for her this year would be especially resonant, as a rising generation of Native writers, actors and showrunners continues to transform the kinds of stories Hollywood tells about Indigenous people.
As Gladstone makes headlines with her series of “firsts”, she’s worked hard to spotlight Native designers and emphasize her pride in her Blackfeet history and language, reminding audiences at every turn that “first” is very different from “only”.
When we asked Gladstone to share a short list of people she considers part of her Native Hollywood network, Gladstone sent 42 names, a list that included not only prominent writers and directors, like Sterlin Harjo and Sierra Teller Ornelas, but also Native cinematographers, film editors, costume and set designers, and wardrobe and stunt specialists.
The Guardian spoke with eight of these artists about breaking into the industry, the work they’re doing now, and the kind of Hollywood future they’re trying to create.
Seneca-Cayuga Nation
Tremblay directed Fancy Dance, a feature film starring Gladstone slated for release this year, which she co-wrote with Miciana Alise
When it comes to Native representation in Hollywood, what’s changed – and what hasn’t?
The reality is that Native Americans have been making films, making art, crafting their own stories, for millennia. Oftentimes, when people talk about “representation”, it can have this weird overtone of discovery. Native Americans have been on this continent making art for all of history. We’ve been out here representing ourselves, representing our stories and representing our communities forever.
Getting a distributor for Fancy Dance was a long journey – something you wrote about publicly, before the film was finally picked up by AppleTV+.
We premiered at Sundance in 2023, got all of these incredible reviews. The audiences on social media were talking about how much they loved Lily. We were like, okay, is someone going to buy the film? Last year was a very fraught time in our industry, and independent film was hit quite hard. Lily’s bravery in continuing to push this film was so vital in getting us across the finish line.
What do you enjoy about working on projects with other Native artists?
We have a certain shorthand and a certain humor. When Native folks show up to a project they really show up. When we were making Fancy Dance, we had the set calls translated into Cayuga, and everyone on set was using Cayuga as a living, breathing language, every day, which was so special – calling words like “action” and “roll” and “set” in Cayuga.
Is there anything distinctive about the Indigenous artists you know working in film right now?
The one thing that I love about Native Hollywood is the support system. Everyone really roots for everyone else to succeed. You might think in a world of limited resources there would be this competition, but everyone collectively celebrates every time someone else has a win. You can really see that kind of culture embodied in how Lily is scooping everyone up and dragging us with her as she goes through this process.
Cherokee from Wauhillau, Oklahoma
Worked on Reservation Dogs, Killer of the Flower Moon, Keep Quiet
How did you break into work as a stunt actor?
I joined some acting groups on social media. From there, I submitted for everything. Paid, non-paid, pizza provided. I’ve been very fortunate to land a few roles, but that came with hundreds of auditions that I didn’t land.
When it comes to Native representation in Hollywood, what has changed over the course of your career?
I didn’t land my first Native role until 2021. Prior to that, I never fit society’s stereotypical “look” of a Native American. During the first several years of my career, I always feared that landing a Native role would put me in a compromising position by being asked to do something on screen that was a misrepresentation of Native identity. With more Natives and allies in the industry, we don’t have to worry about that as much and it’s a relief. There is a much larger platform for Native stories than ever before.
What new Native-driven projects are you most excited about?
The latest season of True Detective, which stars Kali Reis, and Rez Ball, a new coming-of-age sports drama on Netflix produced by LeBron James.
Tr’ondek Hwech’in / Anishinaabe
The 18-year-old stars with Gladstone in Fancy Dance, a drama set for release later this year
What are some things you enjoy about working on projects (or on set) with other Native artists?
I mean, we are all human, but having people who come from the same cultural background, even though our Nations are very diverse, means we can skip the cultural competency and history lessons we often find ourselves telling as the only Indigenous people in the room, and get right to the good stuff – creating art. On Fancy Dance, there were so many strong Indigenous women working on-screen and as part of the crew, I felt like I was really being taken care of and watched out for. The aunties were everywhere, and it was the best.
What have been some of the most meaningful milestones for you in terms of Native representation?
Reservation Dogs changed the landscape of film and TV for me. As a young Indigenous woman, I didn’t have lots of representation. Getting to see my younger sibling and my cousins see themselves represented on screen makes me so happy.
What new Native-driven projects are you most excited about?
Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s so gratifying getting to see the success of other young Indigenous actors.
Blackfeet tribe of Browning Montana
The siblings are co-directors on Bring Them Home, a documentary about an Indigenous effort to re-establish a wild buffalo herd on ancestral land
What did you do to build your career?
I studied film-making in college, and my brother Ivan was getting his masters in social work. We ended up creating a documentary, When They Were Here, about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Later we won an Emmy for an ESPN short that we helped produce, Blackfeet Boxing: Not Invisible, in Browning, Montana, where I grew up, that was teaching young women how to defend themselves. We have our first feature, Bring Them Back, premiering at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival this month. Lily narrated the film.
How do you know Lily?
We met each other at a grocery store in Missoula, Montana. I was working, and she came in, and I told one of my co-workers: “That’s Lily Gladstone.” Lily and I both went to the University of Montana. In film school, before I knew her, I had an editing class, and they had all this stock footage of the actors doing different scenes, and they had one Lily was in. I was the only one in the class who made Lily the main character.
Are their ways your Native identity shapes your approach to film-making?
My brother and I talk about: ‘No extractive filmmaking.’ You don’t go into a community – whether it’s a narrative or a documentary – and extract a story. You get local crew, you get people to help you that are from the community. That’s such an important aspect of my Indigenous way of thinking. You don’t just go in, take a story, and leave. You try to create this community before you shoot.
Siksikaitsitapi, Quw’utsun, W̱SÁNEĆ, Aaniiih, Nakoda
Stiffarm, a freelance cinematographer and director of photography, is working on A’soka’piiwa, a horror film
What motivates the work that you do?
I had an encounter with this woman in Seattle. She was asking me where I came from: ‘Are you from Samoa, or the Philippines? Are you Hawaiian?’ She told me she didn’t think Natives existed anymore. I was, mind you, on the public bus. This was 10, maybe 15 years ago. There wasn’t a whole lot of representation on Indigenous people on-screen. It’s really exciting to see this huge shift. People will see this new representation, and that will change how they see Indigenous people.
How does your experience shape how you approach making films?
As much as operating the camera, it’s knowing when not to operate the camera. Sometimes, here’s things that just shouldn’t be filmed. As an Indigenous cinematographer, if there’s something that’s happening, a ceremony that I am familiar with, I know enough to turn the camera off and put the lens cap on, so people can see I’m not recording. For documentary work, that’s huge.
What are some of your favorite recent Native-lead projects?
I really appreciated Rutherford Falls. The cinematography balanced the darkness behind drama, the brightness behind comedy. It doesn’t take place on the rez, it takes place in the suburbs, which is a different perspective that you don’t normally see. And the topics they handled – land back, cultural appropriation, the media – were done in a way that you’re laughing and slapping your knee the whole time. The showrunners, Sierra Teller Ornelas and Jana Schmieding, are doing a show called Bonnie next – I’m really looking forward to that.
Citizen of the Blackfeet Nation, and a Bitterroot Salish descendant
Swaney directed the documentary Daughter of a Lost Bird. Her comedy script Tinder on the Rez was a 2020 Indigenous List pick
How did you start your career?
I went to film school at NYU and during the last year, I realized I wasn’t going to get much done on my own personal projects if I stayed. I was going to get swallowed up by the city. I missed being back in Montana. I’m a westerner. I wanted to come back and make films there.
When it comes to Native representation in Hollywood, what has and hasn’t changed?
Unless Indigenous people are making the content, we’re still being situated in the past, and we’re still contending with a lot of very big stereotypes. You have all of these sports team images in the back of people’s heads, and this American mythology: ‘Oh, the frontier, it’s totally open.’ And it’s not open. We’ve been here. It’s an uphill battle. People in the 70s were saying: ‘We’re still here,’ and now, 50-some years later, we’re having to say the same thing.
What films or television shows are you trying to make at the moment?
Tinder on the Rez is a comedy. The heroine moves back to the reservation and is trying to date all these people, while feeling the pressure of the real things happening in her family. We’re dealing with this character who is not a great person. It’s like Fleabag. I’ve also been writing a dark comedy feature, about a tribal cop and his activist cousin who decide to take matters into their own hands when a white supremacist beats up their brother/cousin.
Osage Citizen, Deer Clan
Maker was the key costumer on Fancy Dance and a set costumer on Killers of the Flower Moon and Reservation Dogs
How did you break into the film industry?
On Killers of the Flower Moon, I interviewed with a couple different departments. The costume supervisor asked me if I could make Osage clothes, and I told her yes. My mom taught me how to make ribbon work – women wear ribbon work skirts, and men wear ribbon work suits. Throughout my whole life, I’ve watched her make things. Every family has different patterns that they wear.
First, I was in the sewing room of the costume department, working with the tailor. Then I was asked to come assist with the fittings, and I was able to provide a bit of my knowledge about the clothing. I was asked to be part of the demonstrations that were done to show the crew how the clothes should be worn. Then they asked me to come to the first week of shooting. That’s how I got my start as a set costumer.
Do you feel like you need to move to LA? Or as Sterlin Harjo and others bring a lot of Indigenous film and TV work to Oklahoma, can you build a career there?
There’s a time when I did think about moving to somewhere other than Oklahoma to get more jobs. But I get most of my energy and creativity being around my people. I’ve seen a lot of good projects come through Tulsa. We have a lot of creative people here in Oklahoma. I know Sterlin is working on something with Ethan Hawke that will be produced here, and I think that’s great. I hope more people want to create things here, in our home.
Are there works of Native art that you like to recommend?
A Pipe for February, by Charles Red Corn, is a book set in the 1920s, in the reign of terror era. If people want to see another perspective on the Killers of a Flower Moon era, that’s really good.
Oglala Lakota / Diné
A recent NYU Film graduate, she co-directed and produced the documentary series Murder in Big Horn, and has written for Dark Winds, a crime drama set in the 1970s Navajo Nation
What are some things you enjoy about working on set with other Native artists? Many of us share the nostalgia of waking up to the smell and sound of grandma making tortillas or fry bread. Many of us know what it’s like to have that one rowdy uncle or wild auntie who brags about all the mischief they got into on the rez when they were teenagers. Many of us have parents or relatives who experienced horrific things at boarding school and that’s why we grew up rarely getting hugs or hearing the words “I love you” from them. When you have a shared history or similar upbringing, you connect easier. You don’t have to explain why it’s important for us to gather together at the beginning of each shoot day to smudge or why you shouldn’t whistle at night.
What is one of your most meaningful recent projects?
The epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, men, and LGBTQ+ folks is staggering. My cousin was found deceased on the streets of Gallup, New Mexico, a few years ago; not long after that, my brother’s best friend was found deceased in Arizona. Both Dinè, both no longer with us, both close to our family. With Murder in Big Horn, I was able to lend my personal experience towards making of the series in an ethical and informed way.
When it comes to Native representation in Hollywood, what has changed, and what hasn’t?
I’ll tell you what has not changed … getting asked a question about Native representation in the industry. What has changed: a lot of people these days are embracing their Indigeneity. Especially folks who grew up not connected to their lineage or who grew up away from their rez. I do believe film, television and pop culture has influenced that. It’s cool to be Native these days. I love that for our people.
