By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
Three years in the making, a new book highlights the history of Indigenous photography. Co-authored by Brian Adams and Sarah Stacke, “In Light and Shadow: A Photographic History from Indigenous America” takes the reader on a journey through the ever-evolving landscape of photography by Native Americans.
“Indigenous people have been making photographs for their own purposes since the beginning of the medium,” said Stacke, a New York-based photographer who was a founder of the 400 Years Project and has done extensive work in Indian Country including on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI).
In Light and Shadow: A Photographic History from Indigenous America, published by Black Dog & Leventhal, 2025.
On the title, she remarked, “What we like about it is that it references the ways that this history has been both celebrated within communities, but has also very much existed within the shadows.”
Adams, an Alaska-based Inupiaq photographer, commented, “It is shedding light on photographers that have been in the shadows for so long. We are actually getting to celebrate these photographers that have been under celebrated for so long.”
The book is a mixture of historical and contemporary photographs.
Stacke said, “I think particularly with the historical photographers, what we ran into so much was, not exclusively, of course, but just many photographers who practiced photography for the love of photography. Whether it was to document their families for future generations, or whether it was to record their communities purely for themselves and store the photographs in dime store albums underneath their beds and on bookshelves in their bedrooms for decades, just for the love of doing something that brings one joy.”
The two worked simultaneously on parts of the book and divided the work load on others with Stacke tackling finding the historical photographers and Adams working with the contemporary ones.
Adams said, “I had already been working on a database with my colleagues for years on contemporary Indigenous photographers and trying to shed light on those photographers. So, that’s where my strong suit was – coming in, knowing these photographers, having a database already ready to go, and also working with Sarah on finding other photographers that represented other areas of the Americas that we didn’t have even in our database. That was really fun. I got to see a lot of new work and a lot of new photographers through this project, too.”
Included in the book is “Coming Into Power”, a self-portrait by Shan Goshorn, 1986. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. 26/9976
He added, “The book is very level in documentary photography and artistic photography, which is really cool. It’s fun to even look at the historical photos made in the late 1800s and then see Kali Spitzer’s work, which she’s also shooting with wet plate stuff. It brings it all together where she’s doing documentary work, but it’s also very artistic and bringing the two worlds together. That’s one of my favorite parts about the book as far as the new and the old.”
One contemporary photographer that is included is the late Shan Goshorn, an EBCI tribal member, who was a master basket weaver and multimedia artist.
An excerpt from the chapter on Goshorn reads, “In the mid-1980s she joined the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association (NIIPA), and for her, this community signaled a shift in representation. She said, ‘No longer content to just pose in front of a lens, Indians were now picking up cameras…and we were taking our own pictures of ourselves’.”
The idea of representation is very important to Adams. “Here in Alaska, there’s only a small handful of us that are photographers that are also Indigenous. But, that’s what I love about this book, is that nothing like this existed when I was a kid. To have this resource now where a little Indigenous kid, a little Native kid in Alaska, can pick up a book and see their representation in a book, that’s huge to me. I didn’t know any other Indigenous photographers growing up. So, it is a real community feeling…this is definitely a smaller, tight-knit community and we’re all rooting for each other because there’s not a lot of us.”
Also included in the book is this photo by Tom Fields. Bill Frazier, a Chickasaw pastor and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, places his American flag on the sign outside Oak Grove Baptist Church building, Roff, Oklahoma, 2010. © Tom Fields
He said the book and Indigenous photography in general is all about community and is something he enjoyed seeing while researching for the book. “Just seeing that our communities are still thriving. There’s the surface level of Indigenous people that you see and people see out and about, but underneath, what’s not on the surface level, there are still traditional ceremonies and practices still happening today that are still thriving. And, it’s all over the Americas. I get a good glimpse at it here in Alaska. That’s why I love advocating for local journalists to work in Alaska because you get to get deeper into your communities.”
Stacke said the reason behind photography in Native communities is also addressed in the book. “I also think that there can be a common narrative that the only reason that Indigenous people make photos is to produce a counter-narrative to settler colonial narratives and that’s just not the way that it has been. They generate photographic records that enrich Indigenous lives and societies and collective well-being. It’s not just to create a counter-narrative to settler colonial histories.”
When asked what overall message he hopes the book conveys, Adams responded, “I’m just so excited a resource like this exists now. It’s really important and I hope it inspires a whole other generation of Indigenous photographers.”
The book can be purchased in person at Barnes and Noble and and online at https://www.barnesandnoble.com as well as in person at Books A Million and online at https://www.booksamillion.com.
Other ways to purchase the book online include:
