Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

290 reMeMberING the SpaCe aGe
Walpi Village v.12: 1907. (Edward S. Curtis/McCormick Library of Special Collections,
NW University Library)
Mars. It also ofers consideration to the erosion of a landscape that may have
once nurtured some form of life.
the Curtis hopi landscapes were part of a grand design: the photographer
attempted to systematically document the indigenous peoples of North america,
focusing on Native americans west of the Mississippi and into Canada. 31
Consider Curtis’s 1903 black-and-white portrait of a Zuni woman with a
decorated ceramic bowl. the photographer’s connection with his subject and
the simplicity of his lighting and composition make this photograph a symbol
of its era. the Zuni woman has a quality of the timeless, contributing to a
sense of her profound dignity and humanity. Nearly a hundred years later, the
relevance of Curtis’s cardinal points and his aesthetic approach to documentary
portraiture serve to infuence my own photographic documentation of the
people and place in space exploration. by comparison, my 2007 black-and-white
portrait of an american astronaut, Megan Mcarthur, conveys a similar quality
of lighting and composition. as with the Curtis image, I sought compositional
31. Ibid.