Thursday, July 5, 2012

photos of importance

To me, these are some of the most beautiful photos ever taken. They haunt me and make me want to create my own costumes inspired by them.



4 comments:

  1. cool, do you know specifically what tribe or culture they are from? guessing NW Native American ... Nootka?

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  2. The bottom photo is Cowichan, the others are Kwakiuttl and Nootka as far as I've been able to find out. They all seem to have been taken around 1914, but I haven't been able to find out who took them. It'd be cool to find the the entire archives of whoever did. It feels like such an important documentation. When I have time, I'd like to research them a bit more. The feeling of these photographs is so striking to me, but I haven't been able to find more than a few sentences written about any single photograph so far.

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  3. I am late in sending this -- but I thought you might enjoy seeing these masks in motion. In 1914 Edward Curtis filmed these dancers -- the films were restored in 1973 with a new audio track. Here's one that's pretty spectacular and do really look like some of your paintings come to life..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWruVxOBThc

    There's quite a few others of the same series.

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  4. Thanks for sending me that link, Midori. I just watched it! So amazing! I wish there was way more footage now. Very glad I got to see it though!

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