Legacy of the Land
LeRoy DeJolie poses with workshop participants (left to right) Shaylyn, Brandon, Roman, Rachel, Victoria. (Photo courtesy of LeRoy DeJolie)
There's a moment just before dawn when the red rock of Arizona's Colorado Plateau seems to glow in warm tones, as if lit from within. "That sweet light offers itself for only 45 seconds a day," says LeRoy DeJolie, a Navajo photographer and educator who grew up in that landscape. He's spent the last two decades working to capture that beautiful, ephemeral moment in his award-winning photographs taken with vintage large-format cameras. He recently published NavajoLand: A Native Son Shares His Legacy, and in November, 2005, the National Museum of the American Indian invited him to present his work at the Smithsonian.
"I stood at the same podium as Ansel Adams and had a chance to talk about my life and my vision for the future," DeJolie says, reached by phone on his ranch near LeChee, AZ. Part of that vision is sharing his love for photography, his native landscape, and Navajo culture with underprivileged children on the Navajo Reservation and in inner-city Phoenix. "Every Native American has a natural attraction to their land," he says. "Photography is one way of strengthening that and helping kids express it."
DeJolie has taught workshops and guided trips for photographers for years, both privately and through the Friends of Arizona Highways. Two and a half years ago he created My World Photo Workshops to bring photography to the region's neediest children. The workshops mix classroom learning about the camera with field trips and hands-on practice. A local lab donates the processing, and the kids keep their photographs. My World also provides lunches, water, and hiking shoes—everything a child needs for a day in the field. When he first launched the program, DeJolie paid for supplies with money from his photography business and from his full-time job as a metal fabricator for the Salt River Project, but since then others have pitched in.
DeJolie says about 60 kids, aged 10 to18, have gone through the program, with many repeating the workshop. He maintains relationships with his most eager students, sometimes traveling to their remote communities to take them out to photograph with him in the field. Ultimately, the workshops aren't just about photography. They're about perseverance and hard work, about dedication to community and appreciation for culture. "If every adult would find one kid and share what we do in the world with them, I guarantee you the world will be a better place," DeJolie says. So, now that he's learned how to capture his homeland's sweet light, he's working on sharing it, one image and one student at a time.
About the Author
Jake Miller has written for Texas Observer and The New York Times.
This article originally appeared in NRTA Live & Learn, Winter, 2006.
