Way outside our cities and towns are societies of disappearing and
endangered indigenous people . Some of us may think that’s natural— it’s
been happening forever. Others fight to protect those cultures and have
very strong opinions about what’s right and what’s wrong for those people.

One of those opinions is whether there’s a “right way” to depict people who
are different than us— who are not living in urbanized or Western
societies. I was surprised by just how controversial this subject really
was. I guess it’s ok that we’re surrounded by spectacular images that
romanticize cars, sports, and marriage. Really anything commercial— but to
apply a similar heroic lens to people who are different than us, well, that
could be sacrilege. It seems there are people out there who believe that
the only way to photograph those folks needs to be as an anthropological
documentarian— capturing people only how they’re actually living vs in
their Sunday best— proud, celebrated, glamorized.