Learning to Wait: Photographing the Navajo on Their Time

I came to northern Arizona to document the Navajo—their history, their traditions, and their way of life. As with nearly every project I have undertaken involving Indigenous cultures, progress comes slowly. Even when relationships have already been established, trust moves at its own pace. This time is no exception.

I arrived with the expectation that I would begin telling the story of an 83-year-old Navajo woman who still tends her sheep every day and lives much as she has for decades: without electricity or running water. Heat comes from a wood stove, but even the firewood must be gathered from the surrounding hills. It is a life that has largely disappeared elsewhere, yet continues here.

As I neared my destination, however, I received word that her daughter—who would serve as my translator—would not be available. Since the woman speaks only Navajo, her story would have to wait.

Fortunately, another opportunity presented itself. I was invited to photograph a local ranching family and told to arrive at two o'clock the following afternoon. Just before leaving, I received another phone call. The youngest daughter was preparing to load three rodeo bulls for transport.

I arrived just in time to witness the loading. While it wasn't an especially dramatic photographic moment, it was fascinating to observe and, more importantly, it opened the possibility of another story within this growing project.

Then, almost immediately after I arrived, plans changed again.

The horses had escaped from the corral.

Finding them and bringing them home became everyone's priority.

While the search continued across the open plains, I spent time talking with the youngest daughter about her role in the family business, one her father had started in 1976. I also made a handful of photographs as the bulls were loaded into the trailer.

Not long afterward, the horses appeared in the distance.

When I saw Freddie walking across the broad Arizona landscape, leading the horses back toward the corral, I knew I was witnessing the photograph I had been hoping for. I started walking toward him, making photographs as he crossed the open country.

Once the horses were safely returned, it seemed the perfect time to sit down with Freddie for an interview.

It wasn't to be.

Another unexpected complication arose, and our conversation would have to wait. Instead, we stood outside together for several minutes, talking informally beneath the Arizona sky. Freddie spoke about ranching, raising rodeo bulls, and his plans to continue doing so even in partial retirement. Before we parted, we made tentative plans to meet again early next week—if he would be heading out to the ranch where he keeps the bulls.

It means extending my stay by several days.

If it happens, it will be time well spent.

This is their world that I have entered—not my world that they have stepped into. Those are two very different realities. Their priorities are not my schedule. Their rhythms are not my deadlines. Forgetting that would not only be insensitive; it would be arrogant.

Good documentary photography requires patience. Great documentary photography requires humility.

I believe in this story. More importantly, I believe in these people.

The Navajo have a story worth telling—not only for themselves, but for those of us on the outside who have much to learn by listening.

— David

The Names We Give Our Hopes

August 4, 2019

For decades I have been fascinated by the names of small towns scattered across America—places whose names seem less like locations and more like aspirations.

This morning, as I drove from Pittsburgh back to Grafton, West Virginia, I left the Interstate in search of one of them: Prosperity. Like so many towns across America, its name seemed less a description than a declaration of hope by those who first settled there.

While searching for Prosperity, I first came upon the town of Amity.

Amity—a word meaning friendship, harmony, and goodwill.

Only one road passes through Amity. Two churches face one another across Highway 19—a Methodist church built in 1867 and a Presbyterian church completed seven years later.

Continuing on, I finally arrived in Prosperity—named after “the optimism of its settlers.” The town was much like Amity, although it appeared to be in a somewhat better state of upkeep. Houses lined both sides of the road, some with small front yards. The town sits at the “Y” where Highways 18 and 221 meet.

Having left Prosperity behind, I made a few wrong turns and eventually found myself, as best I can determine, near the town of Good Intent. Seven houses, a Presbyterian church, and a weathered barn stood along West Union Trace. The barn appeared to have witnessed countless seasons come and go.

As though framed within the doorway like a photograph hanging on a wall, a reddish-brown horse stood facing left. It was the only sign of life within the town.

Each time I drove through—which was three times, nearly back to back—there was not a person, dog, or cat in sight. It was as if all life had vanished, or had become quietly sequestered within the walls of the houses scattered across the surrounding hills.

With each of these three towns, I wondered if their namesakes ever became reality.

Perhaps the people who founded these towns understood something we often forget—that communities begin not with certainty, but with hope. Their names were not simply descriptions of what existed; they were declarations of what they believed might one day become possible.

As I continue to reflect on this, I am overcome by a sense of the hope that must have filled these early settlers as they established these places. There was a time when these towns existed only as an idea—when the landscape before them was unsettled, and people were stepping into uncertainty in search of a new beginning.

They were not simply building homes and streets. They were creating a future they could not yet see.