Women and Warriors of the Plains: The Pioneer Photography of Julia E. Tuell

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empowerment_of_north_american_indian_girls.jpgOk, so this one isn’t new but I couldn’t resist. As a Native photographer, I pride myself on knowing most of the old time photographers who documented the plains Indians. I had never heard of this woman or this book, so I was suprised to see it in a Mountain Press catalog. I had to order it and find out what it was all about. Imagine my excitement when I opened the book to find photographs of Plains Indians that I had never seen before. It was like a gift from the past. Unlike the posed photographs of Eastman, these photos are more what today we call “candid”. Just eople going about their daily activities. Unfortunetly the book is a medium sized paperback, with paper of ordinary quality – meaning the hotographs are small, dull and sometimes a bit fuzzy. Which makes to hard to decide whether the photograph is out of focus, or if it’s the paper and resolution that make it look fuzzy. Still, its a treat to look through the photos; examining the detailsand faces, outfits and tipis, landscapes and structures of a world gone by but still held close to our hearts. As these photographs aren’t widely known, nor the photographer (at least ot that I am aware of) I would think this book could use a reprint on high end paper in big format.What a treasure that would be. Still worth adding to your collection in its current form. – Review by Catherine Whipple