Choctaw artist D.G. Smalling, with some of the art he created to honor the Delaware Nation, said it’s time to update the 30-year-old federal law aimed at protecting Native art and crafts. (Photo courtesy the Delaware Nation)
WASHINGTON – Native American artists say they continue to struggle with the theft of their work, and tribal leaders are urging Congress to strengthen the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.
IACA was passed in 1990 to prohibit any advertisement and all sales of counterfeit Indian arts and crafts. Choctaw Nation artist D.G. Smalling says the act must adapt to the new ways of buying and selling art through online sales.
“We have just a very different kind of engagement with intellectual property now,” Smalling said. “This is why my principal attorney is an expert in intellectual property. It is to defend what I create and to defend what is mine.”
Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. urged Congress to strengthen the IACA during the Cherokee Days in Washington, D.C., this spring. He is working with members of Congress on a proposed the Amendments to Respect Traditional Indigenous Skill and Talent – or ARTIST – Act of 2023.
“We haven’t engaged the delegation just yet,” Hoskin said. “We will be setting up some opportunities to visit with them. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is where this matter sits at the moment. The chair of that committee is Chairman (Brian) Schatz of Hawaii and he and ranking member Sen. (Lisa) Murkowski have asked for input on the ARTIST Act, so that is the particular forum through which we are channeling our advocacy.”
The proposed legislation would increase and expand protections on Indian arts and crafts, as well as enforce stricter punishments for those who are selling or making counterfeit goods which could lead to being arrested for the crimes. These counterfeit items are often recreated by non-Indian artists or printed off and seen on portraits, shirts, mugs, online shops and many other places throughout the world.
“The law must be changed in order to protect actual Cherokee artists, artisans, and craftspeople – those who are citizens of one of the three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes – and ensure their arts and crafts are the only works permitted to be presented as Cherokee,” Hoskin wrote in a March 29 letter to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Smalling is supportive of Hoskin and other tribal leaders as they push for change.
“They are asking that the law and the act can be adapted for our time and we need to cover all things that are digital, all things that are traditional and analog and we need to have a much more robust set of laws that can then be used to act against those who are chronic violators who profit off of theft,” Smalling said.
“I stand 100% with Chief Hoskin and the other tribal leaders who are seeking to defend our right to our own identity on our own terms.”
–Cronkite News is partnering with Gaylord News, a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications, to expand coverage of Indigenous communities.
Technology has evolved the photography universe. Today, you don’t need specialized skills to take a photo. Camera phones are a benefactor of the advancements. They allow smartphone users to be photographers in their own right.
You can trace the evolution of cell phone photo cameras over a century back. Different adaptations and processes are integrated to help grow the photography industry. Let’s go on a journey to uncover the changes phones are making in photography.
The 20th century ushered in the age of photography, with cameras becoming public in 1900. Kodak Brownie is the invention adapted, producing black and white photos. You had to be at least in the middle class to own the asset. The transition to colour photos for the public came shortly later, in 1907. However, professional photographers could access them earlier.
Polaroid cameras became the next great invention in 1948 by Edwin Land. They took the world by storm through the instant photo feature. Together with film cameras, they offered an option for families and other group photos. This is like the present camera phones. The official switch to developing cell phone cameras would kickstart in the early 2000s. During this period, developers started exploring digital camera technologies like lenses.
In 2000, a Japanese company, Sharp Corporation, launched the first-ever cell phone camera. The low-resolution device, 0.1 Megapixels, was named J-SH04. It is incomparable to today’s standards but still a groundbreaking discovery in digital photography.
Smartphones are still these traditional technologies in modern ways thanks to the internet. For instance, in gambling, you no longer have to visit a casino to play games. You can access different pages at https://online-casinos-australia.net/ offering traditional playing modes slots. They also make work easier for you through their featured technologies.
Kodak had a hold on the industry and largely advertised the concept of photography worldwide. Selling millions of products, like Instamatic cameras, led to the introduction of many digital camera companies. There was no shortage of investors, with different entities getting involved:
Smartphone photography revolutionized the photography market, changing how you view art today. Companies like Kodak didn’t survive the change, while some like Nikon, Canon, and Sony pulled through the evolution. Others like Sony went the extra mile by introducing phones in line with their quality digital DSLR cameras.
These early mobile phones, however, needed better quality, with their primary use being video conferencing. Such phones targeting business persons included:
Consumers were ready for proper mobile cameras, and Apple Phone delivered with their series of brands. Other companies like Samsung would join the race through their advanced tech on gadgets.
You also qualify as a photographer if you own a smartphone and can take good image quality. Undoubtedly, millions worldwide are interested in art due to their phones.
Before the invention of quality phone cameras, professional photographers were in demand in the age of digital cameras, including the DSLRs. Therefore, only some were willing to pay for photo sessions consistently.
Fast forward to the 2010s, you can capture any image at any time using camera phones, regardless of quality. Your phone’s storage is also sufficient for thousands of photos, unlike film cameras, which are only limited to a fixed number of images before a roll’s exhaustion.
Selfies are arguably the most common photo type amongst phone users. Cornelius (a landmark photographer) took the first-ever selfie was taken in 1839. It took the reference ‘self-portrait’ before the current ‘selfie’ name. Australian Karl Kruszelnicki, on 12th September 2002, was the first to use the photo’s nickname via an internet forum.
Everyone, at one point, takes selfies, the factor of self-service saving the camera-shy individuals. A trait made popular by the millennials is now fully adapted by the Gen-Z, and phones have excellent selfie features to keep all parties interested and satisfied.
Several apps primarily develop the need to showcase your photo skills. Applications like Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook thrive through people’s images, of course, with censoring to ensure that all ages can participate.
Technology has allowed these apps to incorporate different factors, like in-built smartphones editing features. Such features are lacking in digital cameras, requiring another separate editing process using computers and laptops.
You can find specific photo editors in your Google Play store, helping you perform basic image adjustments. They are perfect for personal use, but having some skills in professional apps like Photoshop and Lightroom is a plus.
The overall consequence of the complete adoption of smartphone cameras has actively challenged professional cameras. Everybody knows a “good phone photographer,” and such experts are getting a nod over actually qualified personnel for various events.
For instance, wedding photographers express frustration with guests who destroy image quality with amateur mobile phone pics. They highlight the concept of filters, misleading some individuals to believe their photos are comparable digital versions.
There’s no doubt these mobile cameras are also becoming more powerful if you consider brands like iPhones and Google Pixel. The difference that professionals try to sell is skill and knowledge. You probably won’t know you need to use the rule of thirds in specific situations or the type of lighting to use.
It is clear that phone technology affects the photo business. However, there’s an advantage, with more gaps opening up in the market, with different purposes requiring different photography dynamics and experts.
There’s a divide regarding this factor, with some professionals welcoming these devices. Every year, smartphone sales rank to almost 1.5 billion gadgets. The Australian market alone in 2022 accounted for 7.38 million sold gadgets annually, with a 0.01% increase yearly.
It is important to note that the industry has been evolving since the digital cameras’ introduction. The first shift in the market came with the introduction of auto-exposure inventions between the 1980s and 1990s.
The 2000s would see the introduction of modern DSLRs like Nikon, Sony, and Canon cameras, a blueprint for phone technologies. Therefore, smartphone contribution to the industry is inevitable, the difference being their accessibility to many amateur photographers.
Smart professionals use both digital and phone versions to make work easier. This includes using related phone AI inventions and editing apps, which you can use for your DSLR raw pictures.
For instance, apps can assist your hired photographer in sharing images from the digital camera to your phone. This allows the user to edit according to personal preferences after outsourcing the quality raw photo.
Technology will continue changing the state of photography, and smartphones are at the centre of the inevitable change. However, it is hard to attest to the failure of the available DSLR gadgets, as observed with traditional companies like Kodak.
Although phones diminish the need for traditional photography gear, they additionally opened up new potential markets for smartphone-specific photography devices and services. The industry is shifting in a collaborative form between technologies where expert photographers use both to adapt to the different changes.
To celebrate Father’s Day, CITCO has announced a photography contest “Father’s Day Duet.”
To take part in the contest, the participants are required to visit any of the CITCO’s properties with their fathers or father figures and capture a memorable duet photograph with them against the backdrop of the property.
The photograph can be shared on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, using the hashtags #CITCODuet, #CITCO@50, while also tagging @CITCOofficial.chandigarh. Entries are open till June 30
The winner will get a weekend getaway for two at one of CITCO’s properties. The runner-up will get dining experience for two at a CITCO restaurant, whereas, the third prize includes a hamper from Hotel Mountview .
Winners will be selected based on the creativity, originality and emotional connect conveyed through their photographs. The winners will be announced in the first week of July and notified directly via social media.
Small scenes landscape photography: the practice of photographing the little details within the grander scene. Is it simply a genre that some landscape photographers gravitate towards? Or is it the natural evolution of a seasoned landscape photographer?
When I first started landscape photography, I followed the path of many others. Wide shots from expansive overlooks. Photographs of waterfalls, often from a distance, with something in the foreground or the leading line of the flowing stream working its way through the frame. Or a range of mountains, hills, or valleys off in the distance.
The commonality was that most of my images were composed of wide scenes. I still applied compositional techniques to them: watching the edges of the image for distracting elements, positioning the central subject of the scene strategically, and working with foreground elements to create pleasing images.
In my early days, I suspect if I looked at my most common focal lengths, they would have been from a wide 16mm to 25mm range, maybe approaching 70mm on some images. As my early work shows, I photographed that way for a long time!
I remember the first time a more experienced landscape photographer mentioned their favorite lens was a 70-300mm or 100-400mm. I was in disbelief. What!? Why would you want to use those focal lengths for landscape photography?
In my early days, I thought telephoto lenses were for sports and wildlife, not landscapes. I was always wanting wider lenses, not longer lenses. It took me some time to open my mind and consider such a lens. I was skeptical.
But the seed was planted. While I didn’t rush out to buy a new lens when I was exploring and photographing, I started to think: what could I do with a longer lens here?
When you begin to practice landscape photography, everything is new. Just being outdoors and seeing some of these fantastic locations can be sensory overload, and you want to capture it all! The grander scenes shot with wide angle lenses feel right.
The whole waterfall is the subject. The entire mountain vista is the subject. Those are the scenes your eye sees, which you capture with the camera.
As time passes, I believe as a landscape photographer spending more time outdoors, your senses change. In some ways, you become “desensitized” to the grander scenes. They are still impressive, but your eyes have more capacity now to see the details within those scenes.
Your eye starts to pick out the smaller nuances of what you see. Maybe how one section of a waterfall cascades over one particular rock. Or possibly how the light accents a distant ridge among the mountains. Or even the swirling water at the edge of a pond. When this sense of being more in tune with nature and becoming more observant starts to take hold with more time outdoors and experience, that’s when I believe the small aspect of landscape photography becomes more prominent.
Now, a telephoto lens is nearly always in my camera bag: either a 70-300mm or 100-400mm. Just the other week, I was at a particular overlook I frequently visit and never once attached my wide-angle lens, but instead watched the light and worked with the 100-400mm the whole evening, looking for subtle details.
Now, when I visit a waterfall, I am more apt to capture some wider angle shots, but I often attach the 100-400mm and start looking for patterns or details to highlight from the location. I have found these small scenes and details make places I’ve visited dozens of times more interesting again. They are fresh as I look at them with a new perspective and approach. They are more apt to look different because I look at more intimate, subtle details.
This shift has been an evolution of my work and practice. I did not start landscape photography with an eye for small scenes within the landscape. Even to this day, it is an area I am still practicing and working to improve.
It took getting out into nature more often with a camera to help heighten my senses and creative eye to see these scenes. And it has opened a whole new world of landscape photography to me. Old, familiar places are new to me again!
None of this means I am going to stop photographing grand scenes. If I see a waterfall, I am photographing the whole scene, but I am more likely to study the area for those small details and capture those as well!
Are you a landscape photographer photographing small scenes? Do you think it was a path of evolution to see them and photograph them? Or did they come naturally to you? Or do you think small scene landscape photography is just a trend and entirely unrelated to past experience?
Bright and sunny skies, or bluebird skies, as some call them, are the bane of landscape photographers. Or are they? We’ve all been taught to seek out the “good” light of golden hour or dramatic skies. This video talks about how to walk away with great images even on those sunny, cloudless days.
Have you ever had a landscape photography trip planned only to have several days of cloudless skies? Michael Shainblum shares his tips for photographing landscapes on bright and sunny days, so those trips still result in great results.
Shainblum works through some of his techniques for capturing images on days with blue skies. He highlights the importance of scouting scenes under the harsh light, marking them for coming back to them a little later in the day with reflected light. This takes slowing down a little, observing the elements and subjects around you, and thinking about how they will look later in the day.
Shainblum also seeks out subjects in more favorable conditions, looking for small scenes and textures in the shade of canyon walls. He shares impressive results that can come from a little extra effort looking for pleasing light in small places. He concludes the video with what I think is one of the most important tips in the video.
I have actively been pushing myself to latch onto the advice that there is no bad light. The tips presented by Shainblum in this video are welcomed as I work to grow my approach to photographing landscapes at times old me would have considered unfavorable.
SANTA FE — “What is most exciting about the exhibition is the experimentation that each graduate student took on,” says Dakota Mace, who is an Artist Mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Beyond Mastery, continuing through June 30, features work by the inaugural Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts (MFASA) cohort at the IAIA, exhibited off campus at the Coe Center and the Container gallery. Mace called this exhibition the first of its kind because it challenges Western colonial approaches to art-making, education, and its hierarchical structure. Many of these artists produced work on different scales and using mediums they had not considered previously. The program’s Indigenous pedagogical aims and methods allowed each artist to push their conceptual practice beyond, resulting in a stunning and thought-provoking show.
Beyond Mastery collaboratively interrogates the idea of gaining “mastery” and an MFA from an Indigenous perspective. This two-year program, “provides a professional degree in Studio Arts while allowing students to live at home and continue participating in work, family, and community,” and includes intensive summer and winter residencies on the IAIA campus in Santa Fe. Director Dr. Mario A. Caro states that the program centers mentorship, supporting individualized study plans and art practices, along with expanding community relations. Because of this Indigenous pedagogical framework and mission, the Artist Mentors enthusiastically signed on to participate, while maintaining their own practices and careers in their communities. Artist Mentor Tanya Lukin Linklater shared, “In my experience and understanding of Indigenous practices, we are continuously learning over our lifetimes.” Centering an Indigenous lifelong perspective provides space to take risks and produce innovative thesis work.
“Where else can you say all your mentors are Indigenous?” asks artist and graduate student Margarita Paz-Pedro. Many students applied to IAIA because of this radical and unique representation within academia and arts institutions. Even with all Indigenous mentors, though, it is essential to highlight the diversity of their tribal affiliations, histories, homelands, and interdisciplinary art practices and methods. Student Carmen Selam shared, “What I love about IAIA is that you don’t have to do the whole ‘Indigenous 101,’ because there’s already a context for Indigeneity, so you’re able to really focus on the work and growth.” Many of the artists came into the MFA program with decades of experience and developed practices, yet every artist undertook a new interdisciplinary work.
Dr. Caro notes, “The first year is all experimental; we try to break people out of their discipline […] and encourage them to play, make mistakes … [and] grow as artists.” Academic disciplines usually function as a system of rules within a field, but at IAIA there’s a commitment to foster unstructured creative inquiry. Pulitzer Prize recipient and Artist Mentor Raven Chacon wants students to know, “It’s okay to make things that you don’t know exactly the outcome. And you may fail. Because that is what an experiment is.” Many students identify the mistakes, along with creative explorations, as part of the growth process; this approach provides the possibility for transformation beyond one’s practice. For instance, Shane Hendren entered the program with more than 30 years of experience as a metalsmith and jewelry maker, but during his first year, he turned his attention to filmmaking, working with Artist Mentors like Chacon and Anna Hoover. Hendren’s films document intergenerational historical, personal, and environmental storytelling. “Matanza” presents a pig butchering to honor the life of Larry Ortiz while contextualizing Genízaros, descendants of Native American captives, in New Mexico. Collaborating with his family and Navajo community, the films “Grandma Said” and “Grandma Says Diné” impart knowledge exchanged through oral and active listening, while “Sunup to Sundown” is a montage film of his meditative practice of watching sunrises and sunsets and is projected in a round stock tank filled with water.
At the Coe Center, all the artists utilize innovative installation techniques. Margarita Paz-Pedro shifted from production pottery to a multidisciplinary conceptual practice. “Parts of the Whole” is a large installation that interrogates how knowledge is produced and shared through history, land, structures, and relationships. Traditional pottery designs are painted directly on walls as monumental murals and adobe bricks that serve as abodes or habitats for her ceramic pottery, and shards.
Dominick Porras said that working with Artist Mentor Jackson Polys helped form his concept of “memory deposits,” or individual/community cultural story building (i.e., dreams, mythologies, lived experience), as valid forms of research. Porras’s interactive installation work, “p’Akenmamm,” includes a large-scale net that hangs from the ceiling, inviting the public to interact with and touch it, which triggers a video projection of fish. His films “Culture Confidential: Talking Stones” and “Simulation: Voladores” employ digital 3D sculpting/animation and investigate Mesoamerican cosmovision/cosmology and environmental consciousness. Interdisciplinary artist Nika Feldman is interested in making visible the unseen exploitation of land labor in textile and fashion production. Her haunting hanging installation of white t-shirts, titled “Kriah and the Hungry Ghosts,” explores Jewish tradition, in which holes are cut in clothing, to illustrate grief/grieving. “Footnotes of Atrocity” is another part of a larger trilogy, titled Unmaking a Coded Call, and all these works explore her concepts of sartorial sabotage, schmatte prowess, and feminist chutzpah.
Carmen Selam’s interdisciplinary installation “Switch Dance” flows in a circular movement, much like powwow or dance, and welcomes the public to engage with that flow. She offers “new mourning protocols,” emerging from lived experience. They include large photographs and videos, along with seed bead buckskin bags — “23 Tamish” and “The Black Pearl.” As a Queer Indigenous past pageant queen who grew up on the reservation, she’s reevaluated her visibility and positionality in the arts, which she defines as “revolutionary,” and continues to highlight with her work.
Joseph (wahalatsu) Seymour, Jr., whose work is on display at the Container Gallery, states, “I work with whatever medium I can to preserve Coast Salish culture […] and mentors like Sara Siestreem took me to task on moving beyond a static image.” Because his traditional language’s alphabet is only about 50 years old, Seymour explained how important it was to include the language in his image making, as in “Enjoy Beautiful bastiqiyu.” In his paper weavings, like “Mesa in the Valley,” he deconstructs two archival documents and weaves a new image representing Salish agency. Angélica M. Garcia’s installation “El Altar Olvidado” includes some of her ventures in paper-making, sound, and film. Her work centers her maternal grandmother, Teofila Peña, who died on a coffee plantation in El Salvador. She intertwines personal histories with the violent realities and impacts of global capitalism. On opening night, Garcia performed a live serenade offrenda, or offering, which further activated the altar space.
Another artist working with paper, Susanna Mireles-Mankus expanded her painting practice by exploring larger-scale works incorporating text and bookmaking. She looks at the materiality of seeds and their symbolic cyclical potentiality. “Memories of Heat” is an accordion book incorporating watercolor, photo collage, ink, and poetics from her dreams and lived experience. The work journeys through land, dreamscapes, and potential futures.
Madelynn Boyiddle-Schoel, aka Madboy, placed her work outside the gallery space at Container. “Whole Bison Mindset” is a sculpture of an ear made from a butterfly chair frame, wire fence, packing foam, and other repurposed materials. Boyiddle-Schoel credits her environmental research findings and program mentors like Sara Siestreem for prompting her to “educate the already established educators,” with diverse methods of making rooted in sustainable arts pedagogical practice. Her art production has inspired her daughter to recycle and reimagine what kinds of things can be considered art supplies.
This cohort of students pursued their education and art practice during the pre-vaccine COVID-19 pandemic and completed their first year completely online. During their first semester, the cohort tragically lost their friend and colleague DeAnna Autumn Leaf Suazo. At their hooding graduation, her family was given an honorary certificate of recognition and a scholarship was established in her memory.
Beyond Mastery showcases the powerful creative openness of “continuous learning” in IAIA’s first MFASA cohort. Much of the public discourse around Indigenous traditions and history sets up stereotyped expectations of “Native art.” This exhibition instead illustrates how the IAIA is liberating and expanding truly beyond those expectations in and out of the art community.
