Coming to Light

Well, I finally finished the book on ancient chemical warfare and decided to try something more uplifting for my next read, so I settled on the book about the turn-of-the-twentieth century photographer, Edward S. Curtis, entitled Edward S. Curtis: Coming to Light by Anne Makepeace, a filmmaker whose book is a companion to her documentary of the same name. Curtis is famous for photographing North American Indian subjects in the early twentieth century. He was trying to document the western Native American way of life before it had completely disappeared. Makepeace's book combines biography and appreciation of Curtis' photos.

So far, the book is very interesting as I knew very little about the man, Edward Curtis, though I had run across his photos from time to time. Last year I bought a calendar featuring his images with information about the people and activities he photographed; I enjoyed it very much.

Curtis' story is enmeshed in the political and cultural conflicts of his time and so reading about him involves reading about our country's not-quite-successful attempts to settle the question of what to do about the indigenous people who were standing in the way of Euro-Americans' goal to populate and develop the entire continent.

Reading Coming to Light makes me want to find more books of Curtis' photography.