Event is free and open to the public. 3pm, April 18th at the AHC!

Dan Hayward and Audrey Plenty Hoops delivered two complementary multi-media talks about the Crow, or Aps’aalooke, Indian Nation of southern Montana on April 18, 2012.  Hayward’s presentation, titled Crow Tribal Photographs, Then & Now, introduced his large photographic project of the same title.

Hayward’s main project objectives were to document life on the Crow Reservation in photographs and narratives while also teaching photography to Crow adults and children. He encouraged these photography participants to photograph their friends and families on the reservation in their everyday activities and ultimately combined the Crows’ photographs and his own photographs, with photographs taken of the Crow in the early 1900’s by Richard Throssel.

Throssel mainly photographed life on the Crow Reservation in the early 20th Century and has the distinction of being the first Indian person, or one of two who were the first Indian persons to photograph Indian People in North America. Throssel also lived on the Crow reservation, photographing his neighbors and friends and the people he worked, played and prayed with.

Hayward examined and edited more than 2500 photographs from the Richard Throssel Collection at the American Heritage Center as well as other Throssel collections, and ultimately combined the Throssel, Crow and Hayward photographs into one body of Crow Photographs.

Plenty Hoops is Aps’aalooke and grew up on the reservation. She talked about her Aps’aalooke ancestors, including Pretty Shield who was a prominent medicine woman of the Crow a century ago.

Hayward began his professional photographic career in 1978 in Denver, shooting commercial and fine art photographs for a variety of clients. He has lived and worked in Laramie since 1995 and received his Masters Degree in Communication and Mass Media in 2002.