Aaron Huey is a masthead photographer for National Geographic Adventure and National Geographic Traveler magazines. His stories from Afghanistan, Haiti, Mali, Siberia, Yemen and French Polynesia (to name just a few) on subjects as diverse as the Afghan drug war and the underwater photography of sharks, can be found in The New Yorker, National Geographic and The New York Times.
Huey serves on the board of directors for the nonprofit Blue Earth Alliance. In 2002, he walked 3,349 miles across America with his dog Cosmo (the journey lasted 154 days), and was recently awarded a National Geographic Expedition Council Grant to hitchhike across Siberia.
Aaron Huey: America's native prisoners of war
http://www.ted.com/talks/
Aaron Huey's effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people -- appalling, and largely ignored -- compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in this bold, courageous talk.
--------------------------
In the Shadow of Wounded Knee After 150 years of broken promises, the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota are nurturing their tribal customs, language, and beliefs. A rare, intimate portrait shows their resilience in the face of hardship. August 2012 - http://
The sun dance has rarely been photographed. Two sun dance circles allowed him to photograph at a few prescribed moments before and after (Slide 3) the main part of the ceremony. He was allowed to observe much of the rest of the ceremony. He describes it: The sun dance is where the men pray for the alleviation of the suffering of the people. They don’t pray for themselves. They generally pray for their family members, or people that are sick or suffering. They get pierced in their chest or their back, and they tear their flesh off. It’s an intense spiritual exercise that people prepare for, over long periods of time, with fasting sobriety, a vision quest, and intense suffering. What was happening in the middle of that circle was like being on another plane of existence.
Mr. Huey says that he has come to realize that journalists, and publications, are sometimes ill-suited to tell well-rounded stories about complete communities. Even on the web, publications don’t have the “time, space or attention” to tell the story of a whole community. Which is not to say that journalists shouldn’t be telling these stories. “I don’t propose to replace journalism with a bunch of unedited posts from a community,” he said. “But I think supplementing really great journalism with stories from the community, can only improve that journalism. This platform allows for the story to be a living story, that’s infinitely expanding.”
With his new images, Mr. Huey believes that he shows a more complete view of the Pine Ridge reservation than he had earlier.
He will be returning to the reservation to continue photographing. If he meets anyone who object to his photos in National Geographic, he has a new response. He can now say, proudly, that he can’t tell everything about the Lakota. “But now you can.”
(http://
A few months after the Lens piece was published, Mr. Huey received over 40 letters from students at the Jesuit-run Red Cloud High School. Many of the letters asked why he couldn’t show families like theirs: sober, employed, “normal.” The students wanted him to balance the story and to include them. The letters stuck with Mr. Huey. “I had been dissatisfied for years with the limitations of traditional journalism,” he said. “A flaw of all journalism is that someone else is telling your story,” he said. “It was always through my lens, and they felt like that lens was distorted.”
http://www.aaronhuey.com/
http://
http://
https://www.facebook.com/
There's negative BS going around regarding Aaron Huey, shaming his incredible efforts to shed light on the Lakota. On a small scale we and other pages receive bitter feedback because our page is Lakota and non native. Everyone has their right to free speech, but the attacks on Aaron Huey, perhaps the group of women and of course the author of the open letter to Aaron is understandable to a point. We've heard from numerous people and other pages who are angry at this group/page. This page along with many other pages, groups, phone/email trees worked hard bringing attention to the importance of VAWA in Indian country. We've received the same emails over and over again, the complaints about Meme's circulating with wrong information to gain attention. Although we take nothing personal, we believe VAWA passing to include native American women was largely due to so many involved, social networks, phone calls, emails, written letters, dedicated to changing VAWA. This post includes some of Aaron Huey's incredible work, also mentioning how the Sun dance has rarely been photographed, and an explanation of when Aaron returned to do another piece. Instead of jumping and judging Aarron Huey, look at all the good he has done, the time away from his family, his dedication, and insight people have never seen. We are pleased with the light Aaron has shed on our communities, we thank him from the bottom of our heart. Shame on you for your holier than thou behavior, divide and conquer is what keeps us apart so shame on you!!!!! Thank you Aaron Huey for all you have done!
Huey serves on the board of directors for the nonprofit Blue Earth Alliance. In 2002, he walked 3,349 miles across America with his dog Cosmo (the journey lasted 154 days), and was recently awarded a National Geographic Expedition Council Grant to hitchhike across Siberia.
Aaron Huey: America's native prisoners of war
http://www.ted.com/talks/
Aaron Huey's effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people -- appalling, and largely ignored -- compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in this bold, courageous talk.
--------------------------
In the Shadow of Wounded Knee After 150 years of broken promises, the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota are nurturing their tribal customs, language, and beliefs. A rare, intimate portrait shows their resilience in the face of hardship. August 2012 - http://
The sun dance has rarely been photographed. Two sun dance circles allowed him to photograph at a few prescribed moments before and after (Slide 3) the main part of the ceremony. He was allowed to observe much of the rest of the ceremony. He describes it: The sun dance is where the men pray for the alleviation of the suffering of the people. They don’t pray for themselves. They generally pray for their family members, or people that are sick or suffering. They get pierced in their chest or their back, and they tear their flesh off. It’s an intense spiritual exercise that people prepare for, over long periods of time, with fasting sobriety, a vision quest, and intense suffering. What was happening in the middle of that circle was like being on another plane of existence.
Mr. Huey says that he has come to realize that journalists, and publications, are sometimes ill-suited to tell well-rounded stories about complete communities. Even on the web, publications don’t have the “time, space or attention” to tell the story of a whole community. Which is not to say that journalists shouldn’t be telling these stories. “I don’t propose to replace journalism with a bunch of unedited posts from a community,” he said. “But I think supplementing really great journalism with stories from the community, can only improve that journalism. This platform allows for the story to be a living story, that’s infinitely expanding.”
With his new images, Mr. Huey believes that he shows a more complete view of the Pine Ridge reservation than he had earlier.
He will be returning to the reservation to continue photographing. If he meets anyone who object to his photos in National Geographic, he has a new response. He can now say, proudly, that he can’t tell everything about the Lakota. “But now you can.”
(http://
A few months after the Lens piece was published, Mr. Huey received over 40 letters from students at the Jesuit-run Red Cloud High School. Many of the letters asked why he couldn’t show families like theirs: sober, employed, “normal.” The students wanted him to balance the story and to include them. The letters stuck with Mr. Huey. “I had been dissatisfied for years with the limitations of traditional journalism,” he said. “A flaw of all journalism is that someone else is telling your story,” he said. “It was always through my lens, and they felt like that lens was distorted.”
http://www.aaronhuey.com/
http://
http://
https://www.facebook.com/
There's negative BS going around regarding Aaron Huey, shaming his incredible efforts to shed light on the Lakota. On a small scale we and other pages receive bitter feedback because our page is Lakota and non native. Everyone has their right to free speech, but the attacks on Aaron Huey, perhaps the group of women and of course the author of the open letter to Aaron is understandable to a point. We've heard from numerous people and other pages who are angry at this group/page. This page along with many other pages, groups, phone/email trees worked hard bringing attention to the importance of VAWA in Indian country. We've received the same emails over and over again, the complaints about Meme's circulating with wrong information to gain attention. Although we take nothing personal, we believe VAWA passing to include native American women was largely due to so many involved, social networks, phone calls, emails, written letters, dedicated to changing VAWA. This post includes some of Aaron Huey's incredible work, also mentioning how the Sun dance has rarely been photographed, and an explanation of when Aaron returned to do another piece. Instead of jumping and judging Aarron Huey, look at all the good he has done, the time away from his family, his dedication, and insight people have never seen. We are pleased with the light Aaron has shed on our communities, we thank him from the bottom of our heart. Shame on you for your holier than thou behavior, divide and conquer is what keeps us apart so shame on you!!!!! Thank you Aaron Huey for all you have done!
No comments:
Post a Comment