I visited Standing Rock from November 12th to the 14th. My mission was to photograph the actions in order to help document this amazing, impactful, peaceful uprising.
It’s a well-known fact that the media aren’t giving this the time it deserves, and I wanted to photograph everything I could in order to organize a traveling photo exhibit so that people around the country could see what is truly going on, unfiltered by whatever does appear in the news.
After arriving, I realized that my original intent in going, the actions/protests, was not the story to be told. Survival of the water protectors is the story to be told.
Note: this is the first of a multi-part account of a visit to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Each week a new part will be published by the author.
Standing Rock is an actual rock, found in front of the Standing Rock Administration building in the city of Fort Yates, North Dakota. Legend says that a woman, or a woman and her child, turned into rock. Some tales on the internet declare that the woman was turned to stone after remaining in the camp when was torn down because people were leaving to migrate elsewhere.
It was jealousy that made her stay.
When members of the tribe returned to get her, they found that she had turned into a stone.
Yet, while I was at the site where the stone is located, it was explicit that no one really knew the story.
The only thing that is universally agreed upon is that a woman turned into that particular stone.
Miracles have been attributed to the stone, and to this day it is held in high regard by those who live on the reservation and beyond. Offerings and prayer bundles can be seen, wrapped around the stone, tucked between the stone and the brick pillar it sits on, and between the bricks in the pillar.
It’s from this stone that the reservation gets its name.
There are four No-DAPL camps. The best-known is Sacred Stone, but there are also Rosebud, Turtle Island and Oceti Sakowin Camp, which is the largest camp.
The term “Oceti Sakowin” is a sacred term/meaning in the Dakota culture, and we were told to always use the word “Camp” after it to ensure that the two meanings didn’t get confused. Most people called it the “camp” since many didn’t speak Dakota, and “camp” is easier to say than “Oceti Sakowin Camp.”
To explain this from a Judeo-Christian perspective, think of it as “Holy Ghost.” There would be Holy Ghost versus Holy Ghost Camp. Please be very clear that Holy Ghost is not the definition of Oceti Sakowin. The man who gave us the media orientation was white, and he acknowledged that he didn’t really know what it meant. Regardless, he emphasized on the respect we had to show for the name, even if we didn’t know what it meant.
The other, much smaller, camps were called by their names. A term I chose to use was “main camp,” not a very original term.
Life in all the camps is similar, but my story speaks more about the main camp since that’s where I spent most of my time.
“Challenge” is the most appropriate word to describe what it is like to walk around camp while carrying a semi-professional camera. No photography is allowed in any of the camps, not even with cell phones. I was lucky that my affiliation with Silicon Valley Kos enabled me to obtain a media pass.
With this pass I was able to photograph inside the camp *as long as I got permission.* This means that every time I took a photo in the camp, I had to ask for permission. For example, I photographed a bus that was beautifully painted with words of resistance. Before I took the shot, I had to ask if I could photograph *both* sides. Asking if I could photograph the bus was too general of an ask.
Photographing people was the trickiest part. Permission needed to be asked all the time, and most people preferred that I photograph their area in the main camp or their signs, but not them.
Finally, humans have a tendency to move around and not stay put in one place. I was unable to photograph a number of things because no one was there to ask for permission.
There were very good reasons for this. One was that all the camps, especially the main one, were considered areas of prayer.
It was a matter of reverence.
There were sacred fires in the main camp and in Sacred Stone that I saw. None of these could be photographed.
Another reason is that the camp was considered a living area.
In other words, just like in the city, people can’t go around looking into our backyards and windows to photograph, we couldn’t just point our cameras at dwellings.
Most people camped in groups, and the tents/teepees/trailers were usually in a horseshoe shape. Their living rooms, kitchens, etc. were all congregated outdoors in the middle of the space. Again, no one likes to have strangers come into their home and photograph their things. Therefore, respect for privacy was of utmost importance in the camp.
The final reason to acquire permission before photographing was for protection.
Organizers didn’t want pictures potentially harming them if they became public.
For example, on my last day I did a quick stop at Sacred Stone to talk to the elders there. I noticed the beautiful composition of the main camp behind Sacred Stone, so I photographed it. While I was doing this, supplies were being brought in. The supplies were in my line of sight, so I moved the camera to avoid getting them in the shot. They were ugly and I didn’t want them in my shot.
A security guard -there were A LOT of security guards- came to me and said that I could not photograph there at all. He point-blank asked me if I had photographed the supplies, which I hadn’t. I still went ahead and showed him as I deleted the pictures I had taken.
In order to obtain a media pass, one had to go to Media Hill, also known as Facebook Hill.
Legal Services was also found there, and people just called the area “Media Hill.”
It was only there that one could get any sort of cell reception, so the place was always filled with people looking at their phones. It looked more like a bus stop or coffee line than people resisting the powers that be in the middle of nowhere.
It was there were the people in charge of issuing media passes told us of something troubling that happened to them. A man came for a media pass. He got it. He then proceeded to go around camp photographing everything he could, people, signs, ceremonies, day-to-day activities, everything. The man returned to Media Hill after his day photographing and some form of confrontation ensued. He was found to have been an infiltrator who later sprayed nerve gas on the staff at Media Hill.
As a result, security measures were tightened.
For example, before and after I obtained my media pass I was harassed by security simply because of the type of camera I had. Yeah. It was really bad. For good reasons, but very bad nonetheless. At least from a photographer standpoint.
I did everything I could to photograph things at a distance, or to just photograph signs.
I photographed very few people who allowed me to take their pictures.
Mostly, I photographed things that spoke to me about what it was like to live in the camp.
Every single time the camera’s shutter clicked I had to ensure that nothing I photographed could in any way be used by the government or DAPL agents against the water protectors.
A huge honor of trust and a tremendous responsibility was placed on all of us who carried more sophisticated cameras.
I will always feel humbled by the trust placed in me, and fortunate that I was able to document what I saw.
