Shadow Catcher: How Edward S. Curtis Documented American Indian Dignity and Beauty

Shadow Catcher: How Edward S. Curtis Documented American Indian Dignity and Beauty — page 3
not ready to give up his people’s culture or forget its past After meeting Geronimo near the end of the warrior’s life Curtis wrote The spirit of the Apache is not broken By the time he took Geronimo’s portrait Curtis had spent several years living among and photographing many North American tribes He took formal portraits just as he had done in his studio in Seattle Washington But he also traveled to where the Indians lived and worked He wanted to document a way of life that he thought might be erased by the spread of white civilization and industrialization With his photographs Curtis told a friend I want to make them live forever Curtis camera captured as he wrote in 1907 a scene in the high mountains of Apache-land just before the breaking rainstorm In the Territory of Arizona which was not yet a state an unknown Indian nicknamed Curtis the