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This is work. This is a way of life– the faces and forms of innate belonging and timeless knowledge–a way to make a living set aside at birth, passed down through countless generations.

At a particular spot along the Klickitat River within the Yakima Nation, a life or existence flows in harmony with the river. From wooden hand-made scaffolding, fishermen harness themselves with rope around their waists and plunge dip nets into the current. To preserve the life cycle of salmon, the fishermen only catch mature salmon. It is a tradition that has stood for generations. The fishermen are simple people who have struck an eternal balance between themselves and nature.

I do envy simple people. They are more honest than me, I think. Simple people are a step ahead of the times. I learn certain truths by being in the company of simple people. The ideas and lifestyle of everyone else are constantly changing and are never in balance with the world. If they were in balance with the world, they would not be killing it. Simple people live by methods that are constant, self-sustaining, and beneficial. The times are dictated by the self-serving, ever-changing motives of everyone else, not by stabilizing the world. Simple people are out of step with the times. Therefore, in reality, simple people are more in harmony with the world.   

As I reflect on the fishermen along the Klickitat River, I cannot help but wonder if me and a camera were up to the task. The stakes were high. I had to open myself up to my environment. But as a modern technology, would the camera crush my environment?  

The challenge for photography is to render the unseen, transmuting the viewer between realities. The body ages and changes, but the spirit remains the same. It is not identity, a smile, or an action, but rather what is constant and unchanging that is true being or reality. The power of black and white photography is that it doesn’t show too much; and when the likeness of an individual is captured candidly, the spirit of each individual may be shared. So perhaps, at its best, photography conveys honest intentions.