A Grass Dancer briefly looks at the crowd during UNM-Gallup Native American Club’s fall Pow Wow 2012 in Gallup, New Mexico.
Mitchell Butte at Monument Valley
I took this during the end of the 2012 Navajo Nation Balloon Festival at Monument Valley. It was a dusty as fuck day. I envisioned what you see as the winds picked up and I looked towards Mitch butte when everything was over. As I was running towards the perfect spot to get a nice foreground to compliment the brume and dusty horizon, I could feel the gritty grind of dirt crackling between my teeth as I composed my shot. I took a few seconds to adjust my exposure. Then boom……….it was done. I looked at my Canon’s LCD screen. I smiled.
It’s an awesome day when you capture when you envision.
- Donovan
A San Carlos Apache Crown Dancer engages the Holy Ones for the protection and welfare of the 66th Annual Navajo Nation fair-goers during the Apache Dance Festival at the Window Rock Sports Center.
At Shimásáni’s Homesite.
A Pow wow dancer’s moccasins glistens with heritage at UNM-Gallup’s Native American Club’s fall Pow Wow 2012 in Gallup, New Mexico.
A fire fighter from the Navajo Nation Fire Department demonstrates the gear they use on-duty to students from the Tse’hootsooi’ Elementary School in Fort Defiance, AZ on October 13, 2011.
A young fancy shawl dancer moves to the drum beat during UNM-Gallup Native American Club’s fall Pow Wow 2012 in Gallup, New Mexico.
Keeping Vigil over the Navajo Kinaalda Cake
Navajo String Games - Robert Johnson, Diné (Navajo) Culture Specialist, demonstrates the intricacies of the String Game during the Navajo Nation Museum’s Diné String Game educational event in Window Rock, Arizona.
In the traditional Navajo life-way, it is taught that when an individual commits to knowing the String Games, that individual’s memory skill will increase, build patience and develop wisdom. These abilities were a gift lain dormant within each Navajo by the Navajo deity, Spider Woman. In a traditional Navajo’s matriarchal worldview, Spider Woman is the deity who taught the Navajo how to weave.
In some regions of Navajoland, the Geo-symmetric designs seen in the string formations are meant to bring Hózhó, the combination of beauty, balance and harmony.
The cedar stick and yucca lay idle during the 4th Annual Navajo Nation Museum Shoe Game Tournament in Window Rock, Arizona on Dec, 31st. 2012. In the Shoe Game, the 102 yucca stems are used to keep score and the cedar stick is used to strike a shoe, to indicate your guess. The game can be played for hours with no winners. For some families, his teaches their young Navajo children that no matter how cunning you can be, how diligent you can be, sometimes you can not win and accepting an impasse is a stark fact of life.
The shoe game is only played during the North American winter months.
Members of the Northern Traditional drum group, Calling Eagle, lend their voices and drums to the second #IdleNoMore rally in Window Rock, Arizona on December 28, 2012.
Indigenous Americans show their solidarity for Canada’s First Nations at a #IdleNoMore rally in Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation.
A Southern Cloth contestant waits for the drums to start during the 44th Annual Western Navajo Fair’s Pow Wow in Tuba City, Arizona.
Team Roping at the 44th Annual Western Navajo Fair Rodeo in Tuba City, Arizona.
