A Forty-Year Photo Documentary
What began as a photo documentary of life at Wounded Knee, South Dakota evolved into a forty-year project documenting Native Americans across the country — on reservations, in their homes, at powwows, and in all aspects of their daily lives in modern America.
One work from this project is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
"I don't pretend to know everything about the many Native American cultures and customs. Trying to represent or speak for another culture is hazardous at best. I'll never truly understand most of it, but I'm interested and I'm learning. In spite of my ambitions, the images can't help but reflect my perceptions. I'll always be an outsider, but hopefully respectful and respected." — James Cook
From February to June 2022, the Holland (MI) Museum hosted an exhibit of my Portraits of Contemporary Native Americans. Here's a slideshow of the exhibit in case you missed the real thing.
Portraits
Slideshow - Portraits of Native American individuals, couples and families
Dancers
Slideshow - Dancers and landscapes in various parts of the country with descriptions of the outfits and dances.
Sweet Grass Moon Pow Wow
Slideshow - The Gun Lake Tribe's annual Sweet Grass Moon Pow Wow in Michigan.
Wounded Knee, South Dakota
Slideshow - A documentary of life on the rez in the 1980's.
PBS: 10,000 Eyes
Video - Five minutes on my work at Wounded Knee, excerted from a national PBS broadcast on contemporary photographers, . (Edited from original videotape)
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