Oral history interview with Lester Harragarra

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson Little Thunder. Today is Thursday, May 16, 2016. I'm interviewing Lester Harragarra for the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at the Otoe Missouri --we're in the new office, the Internet Loan Office. Lester, you're Otoe-Missouri and Kiowa. You have an engineering degree. You work with the Otoe-Missouri Development Authority Board. You also are involved in the construction of tribal enterprises and businesses. You're a fine art photographer, as well, and lately you've become more active on the Native art show scene, entering shows and winning awards for your work. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Harragarra: Yes, thank you for inviting me.

Little Thunder: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

Harragarra: I was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, in the '50s. Back then a lot of 1:00Kiowa and Comanche tribal members were born in Lawton Hospital. They just recently had the 100th year anniversary, I think it was two or three weeks ago. I was hoping to go down there but never attended. I spent a lot of time with my Kiowa grandparents: Lewis and Reginda Toyebo. They lived west of Carnegie [Oklahoma] on my grandmother's allotted land, one of the original allottees for the Kiowas, 160 acres, a couple of miles west of Carnegie. I spend a lot of time out there in the country, along with my Kiowa relatives there. My father, Kenneth Harragarra, is from this area here, Red Rock. He was born--back then, they weren't born in a hospital, they were born at home. Both my mother and father were born at their homes in Red Rock, west of Red Rock, and then west of Carnegie.

Little Thunder: What did your mom and dad do for a living?

Harragarra: My dad was in the service, a World War II combat veteran. After the war, he was employed at Tinker Air Force Base. He worked there until he retired. Sometime during that period, he was a tribal chairman for a few years there in the '70s, if I remember correctly. My mother is a librarian and we spent some time at the boarding schools here in Oklahoma. She was the librarian at Sequoyah [Boarding School], later after that, Chilocco. I remember we lived on campus then. Chilocco at that time had over 1,200 students on the campus. It was at its peak at that time, which is a lot of fun to be in junior high. It was fourth grade we moved there. I think we left when I was in ninth grade. That was a good 3:00period there to be involved with the students from all over the United States. So I enjoyed that time. But she was a librarian there and then she retired from Riverside Indian School as a librarian.

Little Thunder: So you talked about having a good relationship, being close to your Kiowa grandparents. How about on the other side of your family? Your dad's side?

Little Thunder: My father's parents, actually, I was very young, meaning one or two years old when my grandmother, Mary, passed away, Mary Harragarra. She was instrumental in the Otoe War Mother's Society. Actually, I think, if I remember correctly, it was the first Indian War Mothers' Association. She was president 4:00of that for a number of years. Her three sons were in the service. One of them my dad. Eugene, and Clifford were the other veterans that were [his] brothers. My grandfather, Moses Harragarra, was born in Nebraska. There's a part of our history there that is relatively unknown, I guess, to the general public. I think most people think the Indians here in Oklahoma chose to be here, but not everybody chose to be here. We were removed from Nebraska along with some of the other tribes in that area. the Ponca Tribe being one of them. Pawnee, Iowa, and Ponca tribes were removed from Nebraska and relocated here in north-central Oklahoma.

My grandfather was young at that time, fourteen years old. He was one of the ones that walked down from Nebraska to where we are now. The Otoes have, 5:00throughout the year, they have different chiefs. It's by clanship. One clan would be in charge during the summer and summer is Buffalo Clan. That's what my grandfather was and that's what I am, Buffalo Clan. He was hereditary chief of the Buffalo Clan. He spoke very little English and I just remember vaguely some glimpses of him. He was tall. He passed away when he was ninety-three years old. What people tell me about him is that they always remember him walking. That was what he did every morning. He would wake up and walk. He lived west of Red Rock there also, allotted land. I remember him. He wore braids. He would roll his own 6:00cigarettes, Bull Durham cigarettes. And since he was hard of hearing, he talked real loud, but he spoke mostly Otoe. Very few people now understand the language. But vaguely remember my grandfather, Moses Harragarra.

Little Thunder: In terms of being around the language up there, around your Kiowa grandparents, you were around it?

Harragarra: Yes, I was around them quite a bit and they spoke mostly Kiowa to their friends. As grandchildren, we didn't really learn Kiowa, but we could understand a little bit of what they were talking about. They decided back then that it would be better for us as children growing up in a different society to not learn Kiowa, unfortunately. We view that differently, but back then, that 7:00was their train of thought, was that it would help us in school to more accepted by the dominant society as everybody calls them. I spent a lot of time with them. With not only them, but also their friends and sisters, brothers and sisters, that were our relatives also. Definitely a different value system, first of all, but definitely a different perspective on life. That you don't see anymore, unfortunately, but there's quite a bit of difference that I can see now from when they grew up. My grandfather, Lewis, was born on the banks of the Washita, he estimates around 1893. Back then they didn't have any records.

He remembers that they would go once a month to Anadarko to collect our rations. I remember living with him and asking him all kinds of questions about what Indians did and how fast a horse was, and how fast a buffalo was. But I do remember several things that he talked about. One of them was he remembered there wasn't anything west of Chickasha [Oklahoma]. The rail line went through Chickasha, but there wasn't nothing. No fences. Wagon trails was all they were. Everything was open. No telephone poles, no roads. He talked about that. My grandparents were older when I was born and came to spend some time with them. They were in their seventies by then. Probably that generation had a glimpse of 9:00what it truly was to be Kiowa because of their parents. Their parents were the ones that were captured in Palo Duro Canyon [Canyon, Texas]. When you look at what they could see, as they were a younger person from their parents that was taught, they were still living on the Plains, still hunting buffalo, then to where they saw their world changing as they got older, meaning World War II.

All the technology that was being invented, all the songs that they knew that were suppressed for years. And then in the '50s they were gradually revived, the Gourd Dance and Black Leggings. They saw those changes there. My grandfather, Lewis, composed a lot of the War Mother songs, but not only that. There were 10:00other songs he wrote. He was a composer and I remember as a young child, he bought a recorder. That was fascinating to me, but he bought a recorder. He would sing, sing a song, and then he would talk in Kiowa and what he was describing was what the song was about. My mother still has those tapes. I think she's had some of those digitized. I'm not for sure, I'm pretty sure she had some of them, but I don't know if I she had all of them. I remember trying to play with the recorder. Those are some of the memories I have of my grandparents, Kiowa grandparents.

Little Thunder: Precious memories there. So what is your earliest memory of seeing Native art, however, you would define it?

Harragarra: Obviously, it's through my mother being a librarian. After school 11:00I'd get off the bus and go to the library there at Chilocco. It has this large library. So just being around books all the time. Just looking at--obviously back then you didn't pay too much attention to reading--

I was more interested in the image itself. I can just think of being in a library there in fourth, fifth grade, looking at books and looking at images, looking at artists' renditions. George Catlin was probably one of the influences that I have as far as art is concerned. And then the realism that he portrayed in his portraits. I would think probably early influence was just that. Then, as I got older then you recognized that you could--being kind of technical first of 12:00all, but just being fascinated with a camera, just as a toy first of all. My aunt, I think, bought my first camera when I was seven or eight years old, just a little instamatic. Polaroid. Just have a fascination with technology first of all. But then you look at the capability of being able to record something.

Little Thunder: Were you going around just taking--I think back then there was film, and there was developing and it could get pretty expensive. What was it like with a camera in your hand? What were you taking pictures of?

Harragarra: When I first got a real camera--

Little Thunder: No, when you--

Harragarra: Was young?

Little Thunder: --were eight. When you got that first camera.

Harragarra: Then you would take the film into the drug store and send it in and wait a week or two for it to come back.

Little Thunder: And your family was supportive, it sounds like.

Harragarra: Yeah. Back then most of those cameras, you could almost always take 13:00a good picture, but there was always things that I recognize that influenced the way the camera worked. Lighting, obviously, the more critical aspect of it. You'd get some pictures and some of them turned out and some of them didn't. What I tried to figure out was, "Okay, what made this picture not turn out?" I would've liked this to be a good picture. There was that, the film. The other camera that became popular when I was younger was a Polaroid where you could wait two or three minutes and the image would appear on the photo. That was always fascinating. Back then, it was just black and white. Later, they developed a Polaroid in color, but black and white images were--the first camera I got was a Polaroid.

Little Thunder: Did you get one of the Polaroids, too?

Harragarra: Yes, I think my grandmother bought me the Polaroid camera.

Little Thunder: And were you taking pictures mainly of people and family members?Or landscapes? Or just anything?

Harragarra: Back then it was just anything. I think the pack only had eight photos in it. You had to be very conservative about what you took a picture of. I remember playing with that. It was something that fascinated me was how that happened. As I got older and got into college is when I got--I call it my first real camera--a 35 millimeter Canon. You had the same option then. You could take it to a lab and get it processed. But then, going to school at UNM [University of New Mexico], they had a photo lab. In the photo lab I learned how to develop and do my own printing. From there you could spend hours first of all, doing that process, printing, and developing. And doing the burning, and dodging, and 15:00cropping. Probably what I've always concentrated on and still do is try to improve my images. That's one of the aspects of photography that is ongoing. You always want to get a better image. That process that started back in the early '80s in the darkroom was trying to take a better picture. Obviously, light and the settings on a camera influence that.

Little Thunder: You didn't do any photography in high school. Didn't have access to any classes?

Harragarra: Not really, no. Not really. Never did any classes in high school. I'm just self-taught.

Little Thunder: Right. How did you end up at University of New Mexico?

Harragarra: Actually, my mother told me about this engineering program that was started out there. It was geared to Native Americans in engineering. We were the 16:00first four students. The program out there at UNM, University of New Mexico, is called NAPCO, Native American College of Engineering. Went out there in the mid '70s, I believe it was. Then always wanted to buy a real camera. So at least--

Little Thunder: I wondered if you'd been torn. If you were thinking about, "Oh, I'd like to be a photographer. Make my living with photography." Or did you just also have this other interest in technical things and how structures work?

Harragarra: Probably it was that more than anything. Just had a curiosity in mechanical--how things work and function within a camera. It had settings that you had to set correctly. It was obviously a mechanical instrument, but probably the aspect I liked about with it was also creative, a creative tool. That was 17:00the other fascinating part was just trying to figure out not only how to set the camera, but also how to get a good image, a nice image. That interest was--as a child like I said, it was just fascinating to take a picture.

Little Thunder: Now University of New Mexico, they probably had people who were studying photography. Did you have any interaction with them?

Harragarra: No, there were other students. Architect students, other colleges there that I worked with at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They also had an interest in cameras. Back then in the late '70s, early '80s, that was kind of one of the popular things people did was have a 35 millimeter. Nikon had their version and Canon had their version, and they weren't really that expensive. 18:00There were quite a few people that carried around a 35 millimeter. I remember seeing old interviews of Johnny Carson and several of the actors that he would have an interview, they would have their 35 millimeter around their necks. It was just one of those things that everybody got into, me being one of them. So there were several of us students that had cameras. I don't remember really how many pursued that later on in life, but as I got older I got more interested in it. Probably what motivated me more than anything back then was--for example, this Black Leggings photo. As I got older, recognizing that if you look at that image there, there's several of them that have gone on. One of them was a real 19:00well-known artist, [Sherman] Chaddlesone. He's there in the front.

Little Thunder: I didn't see him.

Harragarra: As I got older, that probably was the motivation was to capture that event, primarily. But also knowing some of those World War II veterans that were in this organization. It was just my way of contributing, really. That, and I look at it as a way to preserve our culture currently. A hundred years from now, there are going to be Indians, there's going to be Kiowas, there's going to be Otoe-Missourias, so this is my contribution. A hundred years from now I'll have something for them to look at. Now we have the capability of video, which adds 20:00another aspect to our culture.

Little Thunder: Had you seen any Native photography at that point? Were you aware of any other Native photographers that were.... Of course, Horace Poolaw is a famous one. I'm thinking about Zig Jackson or any of those people.

Harragarra: Yes, out West there in the Southwest and Arizona and New Mexico, there were a few Navajo photographers that I can think of. I don't remember their names right now, but I do remember looking at their images and thinking--first of all, they take great images. You just kind of look at those and think, "I'd like to take some pictures like this one of these days." In a way, you're influenced by those. Some of those artists that were in acrylics, T. 21:00C. Cannon, he had that 35 millimeter. There were several of them that did photography. Maybe their specialty was in some other art form, but they did dabble in photography. I didn't really look at it back then as a true art form. I looked at it as a way of just recording something. Later on, I would say probably in the past maybe five years, maybe it's longer, I started doing these art shows. I never really participated in these art shows because I was just trying to take pictures of events.

Little Thunder: Right.

Harragarra: And then gravitated towards--because people would always ask, "What do you do with these images?" And I'd say, "Well, I don't do anything with them now, but at some point I plan to." And I'm still planning to.

Little Thunder: Yeah, and I was--I listened to one of your interviews, in which 22:00you mentioned that you had from 8,000 to 10,000 images. (Laughs)

Harragarra: Oh, now it's quite a bit more than at. It's easily over a hundred to two-hundred thousand. I don't know really know how many exactly I have. But yeah, it's in that area.

Little Thunder: As you say you've approached it and still your primary goal is to document, and in the process you're documenting individuals for their families and things. Do you sometimes give them copies of photographs?

Harragarra: Yeah, at the Black Leggings, for example, in one day I can probably shoot 3,000 images. If there's somebody--a personal friend of mine may ask--so I'll go through and pull out those images and get them a copy. I hope to do that for all the Black Leggings, but it's one of those projects that I still am working on and would still like to do something like that.

Little Thunder: Right.

Harragarra: Right now I just kind of do the group shots. There's several of them, but I do try to take individual shots of all the dancers that are out here. I was asked to start doing this in the late '90s, so I've been doing this ever since then. I don't think I've missed any of the dances in the past probably fifteen, sixteen years. Back then there were still a lot of World War II veterans that were still active. Now, I don't think there's any. I think I took a picture of the last three World War II veterans about three or four years ago. I hope to do something with these. Even just a slide presentation is what I wanted to do. Start out with that.

Little Thunder: Now you got a one-man show in 2009 at Southern Plains [Indian] 24:00Museum. I didn't know if the entire subject of the show was the Black Leggings ceremonial or was it a range of pictures?

Harragarra: It was the Black Leggings strictly. In addition to the still images that I had, the University of Oklahoma had a group of researchers there. One of them is a young man named Michael Jordan. He had done some video. So in addition to the still images on the walls, they had the video that played of the Black Leggings. It was one of the few videos that the Black Leggings allow.

Little Thunder: And you spend a lot of time photographing at powwows?

Harragarra: Yes, I do trying to photograph as much as I can. Mostly just Indian life as it is today. Meaning not only just the dancers, but the camps. People 25:00cooking fry bread, people putting on their outfits. Here in Oklahoma, though, it's a little more difficult as opposed to the Northern tribes where first of all, they dance during the day when you have good light. I try not to use flash, but I do, at times, use flash. But I like to stick with the natural lighting if I can. Around here, like I said, our dances start at eight and nine, so I lose a lot of the good light.

Little Thunder: I hadn't thought about that. but yeah, definitely on a different schedule. Let's see, you've won a couple of awards at the Red Earth Indian Arts Festival in Photography, didn't you?

Harragarra: Yes, I've won--

Little Thunder: That must've been when you started entering.

Harragarra: Yes.

Little Thunder: What was that like for you?

Harragarra: Probably the first time I won, obviously, you get excited about it. I'll always look at images and think, "Well, if I tried this or if I was over here two more feet, or if I had the camera set a little differently, you'd come out with a better image."

Little Thunder: You're always being critical. (Laughs)

Harragarra: I think everybody does that.

Little Thunder: All artists do that.

Harragarra: Everybody wants to do something, first of all, that they feel represents the people, but most importantly, that aspect of it is trying to represent. I think at some point some of these images that I have of the Black Leggings were displayed overseas at a museum in I think it was somewhere in Ireland? Maybe in Wales? It's been a while since that request came in, but I did send some over there. That's what I look at. I think that the commander of the 27:00Black Leggings, Lindon Palmer, took some over when he was in Normandy. Gave some to some of those people over there. That's why I'm kind of critical about having everything looking as nice as I can.

Little Thunder: Right, those issues of representation. Of course, photography comes, for Native people, comes with a lot of baggage. Working, being a Native photographer, how do you approach things?

Harragarra: Probably the misconception that Natives have is that you make a lot of money doing this. Unfortunately, that's a misconception. I tell them, most of them can get online and look things up through Google or whatever search engine you may have out there. And I said, "Look at these images and see what they're 28:00going to cost. You can go to stock photo, and realistically, those images are from eight to twenty, twenty-five dollars." So when somebody sees an image of themselves and they think that I'm making a lot of money off of it, first of all, I don't sell them. I don't do any stock photos. And the reason why is it's eight to twenty-five dollars.

The unfortunate part about it is there's not much money to be made. The other side of it is the pictures that I do take and a family asks for them, I typically just do it at cost because it's something I'm not doing to make money. It's hard to do that to make money. If I took the other types of images, maybe weddings, or sunsets, or things like that... That's what I do at these art 29:00shows. They're generic photos, they're not of individuals. But I would say probably 60 percent, 80 percent of my images are of people. I do these other images, first of all, because they just happen to be there and recognize a nice scene. Those are the ones that I sell. Like a tipi or a buffalo over here. Those type of images I do sell and enter into these art shows.

Little Thunder: That's the other part of it, the business part. The images that you do sell, how do you figure out how to price them?

Harragarra: Mostly I look at the cost of what it costs to get the image produced, printed, and mounted. I get online and see what everybody else selling 30:00theirs for. When you look at the cost of what it has and what it costs me to get all this together. I remember I was boarding a plane and going to California at one time and was running a little late and they were asking everybody to check their baggage. I had my camera gear in one bag and I was going to put it in the overhead and she asked me to check it. I said, "Okay, I'll be willing to check it if you're willing to insure it for me." She said, "How much do we have to insure it for?" I said, "Probably $10,000." When you look at the investment you have in equipment, the cameras, the lenses, tripods--

The other investment is nowadays with digital. It's the computers that you use and the software. I do this just to document my culture. I don't look at it as a 31:00way to make a living. I don't really have that aspect to push me along or to steer me. I think if I were in that situation, and I think you asked that question earlier, about doing this as a living that adds another aspect of pressure to where you have to do this to survive. Fortunately, I'm not in that situation. I just do this because, first of all, I enjoy this and it's something that I look at a contribution to my culture, just like the other people in my life have done. They always have some talent. Maybe it's making moccasins, maybe 32:00it's singing. This is my contribution.

Little Thunder: What's a project that you're currently working on? A project or a series?

Harragarra: The ongoing project is the Black Leggings Project. There's so many images I have now. That's ongoing and there's several ways-- When I first started this, it was very expensive to get a book produced. One of my good friends is David Fitzgerald, well known photographer here in Oklahoma. I've known him since the early '90s. Back then he had a good publisher in Portland, Oregon. He told me the cost of getting a book produced and it was, to me, it was 33:00astronomical. There's no way I could convince the people I know or some of the tribes that [I am] involved with to do something like that.

He's had quite a bit of success with the Cherokees and Chickasaws, and his latest tribe was Choctaws. Obviously, they're well-funded. That's how that occurred. When I was aware of the cost, I realized there's got to be some other ways of doing this. Fortunately, the technology has progressed to where you could produce something in Photoshop and Adobe, that software there, and it's not near as expensive as what it used to be. That's one of the projects that I would like to do, work on, concentrate on, is getting some of these images of the Black Leggings. It's one of those things to where I would need to devote a 34:00lot of time to it because first of all, I want the images to look nice.

Just the color correction, the software now is so sophisticated. You wait another six months and there's another version coming out and it has different capabilities. Just working with the software on some of that. Some of these older images I have are film. The limitation there is very few labs nowadays do film. There's one in Dallas and that's the closest one. I have to send the black and white images, film strips, down there and have them reproduced. I want to do this Black Leggings Project here. I have so many images. Obviously, there's going to be several. I wouldn't call them--maybe a series? I have no idea how I'm going to do this. Now what's happening in their organization is the Vietnam 35:00era veterans are the ones that are taking over and are themselves getting older. I'm looking at World War II first. The Korean era, there weren't that many veterans back then. Then Vietnam and most recently, the Iraq War. Desert Storm, there's a few veterans that were in that conflict. That's probably the biggest project I want to work on right now is finishing that up.

Little Thunder: You're doing the Artesian Show, I guess, next weekend.

Harragarra: Yes, Memorial Day weekend.

Little Thunder: Can you talk a little bit about [it]. I guess this is your second year.

Harragarra: Yes, I participated last year. It was the first year I was involved in that. One of my images I submitted--one of them won First.

Little Thunder: Oh, that's wonderful.

Harragarra: I enjoy that show down there. The Chickasaw Nation really supports their artists. They're trying to develop this art show into something that has a lot of significance in this area. They have the resources, first of all, but I think they recognize that a part of all Native cultures is their art.

Little Thunder: Have you ever done IFAM or Santa Fe Indian Market?

Harragarra: Yes, I've done IFAM.

Little Thunder: I thought maybe--

Harragarra: Yeah.

Little Thunder: When was the first time you did that?

Harragarra: This year will be their third year, so I'll be out there in August 37:00for the third time. I did their first one, 2014. They don't have any judging or anything. It's just an art show.

Little Thunder: Was it a pretty good sale show? In terms of--

Harragarra: Yes. They start on actually Thursday. It's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Of course, Indian Market is Saturday and Sunday. I enjoy going out there, meeting other people and seeing old friends.

Little Thunder: Right. I think there has been a shift in terms of-- I remember being at art markets with paintings, and there was like resistance on the part of the people to pay for photographs at all. But I think that has changed. I think people are recognizing that. I was wondering, too, what your involvement 38:00is. Do you mat or frame your photographs? Or do you just display them?

Harragarra: Yes, I do. For a while I used to do my own matting when I first started out. I was just doing my own matting. The printing is probably the more difficult part because the color is very critical in a photograph. One printer may have a good tech that understands the color accuracy is important. They may have another tech that's just there for the money. There's this lab I work with in Oklahoma City that I've been working with for a number of years. He's very critical in his work, so I use him exclusively for all my printing. I don't really do any printing myself. I tried to at one time, but it's pretty involved, 39:00and obviously, the printers themselves get more expensive. I don't do any printing, but I did do the matting for a while.

Little Thunder: Right.

Harragarra: The other art show--I think the first art show I participated in was Red Earth. That might've been four or five years ago, I don't remember when. That one's coming up second week in June.

Little Thunder: Yes, it's show season. Do you do any non-Native shows?

Harragarra: No, I don't. I was trying to remember. I tried one, I think.

Little Thunder: Was it here in Oklahoma?

Harragarra: Yes. I don't really do those. It's kind of like I have limited time. 40:00I pick the ones that I would like to participate in and typically they're local, other than Santa Fe. Who doesn't enjoy going out to Santa Fe?

Little Thunder: Exactly. (Laughs) You haven't had any dealings with galleries, I take it?

Harragarra: No, I don't. I've been asked, but I just haven't gone down that road yet. When I first started, I primarily photographed people, so that was the limitation there. I didn't want to display people that, first of all, some of them have an objection to it, and I didn't want to violate that. I was very cognizant of peoples' images being out there, especially if they didn't want 41:00them. That's when I started gravitating towards taking other pictures of animals and tipis and landscapes. That's when I started doing the art shows again.

Little Thunder: How has your approach to photography changed over the years?

Harragarra: At the beginning, it was just trying to master the setting of the camera. Learning what settings, how it affected the image. Not only that, but back then it was film. It wasn't just the camera settings that you could manipulate and change the image, it was also in the dark room. You could spend hours in a dark room on one image. Dodging, and burning, and changing the lighting. At the beginning it was just learning the techniques. How to take a 42:00good image, how to manipulate the camera, get the settings and the lighting correct. I concentrated on mostly trying to learn that aspect of a good image. Then as I got older and felt more confident in how the camera was set, then you start looking, I did, anyway. You start looking at the more creative aspect of an image. That's probably where I am now. Now I use flash. That's another aspect of controlling light. That's what photography is all about is controlling light. They have different types of wireless flashes and controls on the light that you can modify and change an image. I'm working in that now, but there's a newer 43:00type of lighting technique called light painting that I've been getting into. I don't have any images currently, but that's one of the newer techniques, I guess, that I want to work in.

Little Thunder: That sounds interesting.

Harragarra: Yeah.

Little Thunder: So you're playing with the light actually when you're trying to take the picture?

Harragarra: Yes, it's typically done in the evening or at night, and what you do is you set the camera to where the exposure is open, the shutter is open, and then you use a smaller light. Could be a flashlight, could be a larger flashlight. Could be your cellphone. What you do with the light is you paint what you want illuminated. The rest of the image remains dark. It's a pretty dramatic effect, if you get it right. Around here in Oklahoma it's hard to do in 44:00the evenings because of all the wind. The camera has to be absolutely still as well as the subject. If you're taking a picture of a skull, it's easier for that to hold still. But if you have a live subject, it's hard for them to stay still that long, so you get a little blurring. That's the obstacles there. Yeah, that's the newest technique I'm working on.

Little Thunder: Do any of your children take photographs?

Harragarra: No, they don't. I have a daughter. I have several nieces and a nephew. I've always saved my older camera gear, hoping that one day they would pick it up. I will say this, it's time consuming. I think that's probably the biggest obstacle people have with it. I think a lot of people have interest in photography. As they get more knowledge about it, I think one of the things they 45:00realize is that it takes a long time to learn how to take a good image. The other side of that is these cameras nowadays are so sophisticated, you can put them in the automatic mode or program mode and you get a fairly good image. That's one aspect of it. The other is developing something in the software into where you're doing some color correction or putting an effect on the image itself to change its look. That's what some of these are here. That's another whole different art is Photoshop. Manipulating the actual image. Some people gravitate towards that. A lot of graphic artists, that's how they started. I 46:00know a little of that, but not that much. I just strictly want to stick with, first of all, a photo. Start with that.

Little Thunder: What would you tell a young Native photographer, someone's who's aspiring to do this maybe full time? Or maybe just as a way of giving back to the community?

Harragarra: First of all, like I said, the technology's improved enough to where you can buy a basic camera and it's going to take a real good image simply because of the software. The camera itself recognizes the lighting situation and it sets the camera properly. It's easier than it used to be. I don't see too many photographers out there that are Native. At one time, there used to be, like I said, in the late '70s and early '80s that was kind of the thing to do 47:00was get a 35 millimeter. But I don't see that many now. What I do see is a lot of young people involved in video. I think that's probably the bigger interest is video. That leaves open still photography. There are a few, and they are very talented. that I know that I see in Santa Fe. I think there's plenty of room there for somebody young to get into still photography using a digital SLR. Now, with these Eastern tribes, they have a lot of resources. I could see an opportunity where somebody could work with one of those tribes there: Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks. I think they can probably make a living at it really and develop, from there, an art.

Little Thunder: You sort of covered, I think, some of the technical challenges of doing digital photography. Have you ever experimented with collage or using photographs in a different way?

Harragarra: Yes, there's Photoshop out there. It's easy to do collages in Photoshop. It's one of those things where I recognize it can be done, but I haven't really spent too much time on doing that. There's several companies that specialize just strictly in photography. Adobe is probably the premier software company out there and they have Photoshop, they have Lightroom, and they have 49:00software that they use for movies and video. There's other companies out there that also do photography software. I have several versions of those that I use. I'm sorry, what was the question again?

Little Thunder: If you'd ever experimented with using photographs in a different way, a collage or something.

Harragarra: I do use this software to change the image. Right now there's a lot of interest in get that old photographic look where it looks scratchy and areas are blurred and the color's a little off. There's a lot of companies that produce software to get that kind of effect.

Little Thunder: I didn't realize that.

Harragarra: There's so many to choose from. You can spend a lot of time going through all those options and settings. I dabbled in some of that newer software.

Little Thunder: When you have photographs at an art show, what size and what finish do you prefer when you're getting them developed? Is there a particular size that sells well or particular finish or mats?

Harragarra: The smaller ones seem to sell because, obviously, they're not as much to produce. The cost is relatively affordable for most people. I prefer the larger images like we have on the wall over here. The latest thing I've done is these are mounted on aluminum panels, a photograph mounted on aluminum panel. I do have matted and framed images that I do sell. But one of the comments I hear 51:00as people look at the photographs is, "I don't know if this frame will go with the frame I have in the living room," or, "Do you sell just the image because I would like to change the mat to match another mat?" Lately, I've started using this new technique called aluminum--mounted on aluminum panel. What that does for me as a photographer is it eliminates the distraction of having a nice frame, a nice mat, that they match the image. I eliminate that. Primarily I just want to display the image itself.

Little Thunder: It's all about the image. Yeah, it's a nice look.

Harragarra: That's probably my latest way of displaying. I will try some of these on some other type of medium. Canvas, maybe. There's different types of canvas that they use and different type of paper. I'll try some on different 52:00surfaces and textures and get a different look.

Little Thunder: How important is it for you to title your photos?

Harragarra: I think it's important. I spend a lot of time on them. That's why, probably, most of them are untitled. The ones that I do title, yeah, I like to spend a lot of time on that.

Little Thunder: Do you sign them on the photograph?

Harragarra: Yes, if I remember. There are times when I don't remember to sign them. My intention is to sign all of them.

Little Thunder: In a corner or--

Harragarra: Yeah. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen.

Little Thunder: What's your creative process for a photograph? Do you come up with an idea--maybe that you want to shoot a particular landscape at a certain 53:00time of day?

Harragarra: Yeah, there is process I go through. Probably where I learned this from is from our friend, David Fitzgerald. He was really an artist, an acrylic artist, doing paintings. How he got into photography is he wanted to take a picture of a subject, so he took a picture of it and then he would go back in his studio and he would paint. Along the way he started appreciating the photographs. That's how he got into photography was through that process. What I learned from him was, first of all, he's done probably close to twenty coffee table books in his career. He has a technique down and a process that he goes 54:00through. I've learned from him how to stage these, how to plan them. That's what he does. He does a drawing of what he has in mind, of what he wants to try and photograph. Not that it's always going to turn out like that, but at least he has an outline of how he wants to work and how he wants the image to look. I try to adopt that as much as I can. I do go out there with something in mind as how I want this to look. Not that it's always going to turn out like that.

There were some times when you could go there and spend two or three days and not really come out with anything you want to display. But there are times when you make a mistake and it turns out better than what you thought it would be. The camera's set wrong or a movement happens and it adds to the picture. For the 55:00most part I do try to have an idea in mind and try to reproduce that and try different variations with it. There's two aspects of it nowadays that didn't exist during film. That's the aspect that these cameras are very sophisticated now, so you have a lot of control in the camera itself. In addition to that, the after-production, running it through the software, you have another avenue of being creative in that aspect. That's where graphic artists come into play is that capability. Yes, I do have an idea of how I want these to turn out. Most of them aren't something that I've created. It's something I've seen going to conferences or caught a glimpse of these millions and millions of photographers, 56:00worldwide. I do try to get online and look at images and see something--

Little Thunder: It's part of your research.

Harragarra: And try to see something that I would like to reproduce using a Native theme.

Little Thunder: Another creative decision I guess is also whether you do a sepia treatment, or you do color, or-- I think you mentioned most of your black and white are taken from film.

Harragarra: Yes, when I get my film--35 millimeter film--printed, you can opt for the sepia setting in that. Again, that goes back to if you go to a different lab they're going to have a different color. Some, obviously you like and turn out better than the other. But I haven't done any film printing in quite a 57:00while. Most of mine are digital. They can come pretty close to reproducing something I did four or five year ago. I can take the image back in a digital format and show them what you did five years ago. Could you get something to match that? They can come pretty close. Again, it's the software that I use to take the color out of an image and put it all in black and white or add a little tint to it. This is an example of something that was black and white and I added red tint to it. It looks like a sepia image.

Little Thunder: It does. What was your biggest photographic challenge?

Harragarra: Money. (Laughter) The expense of the cameras and the lenses. 58:00Primarily, it's the lenses. They can get up to $10,000. I don't own any that cost $10,000. One of these days, yes. It's the cost of the camera body itself, the lenses, and then the accessories of flash. The radial controllers to control the flash. It's the hardware. I was trying to think of the other obstacles, creatively. I think every artist runs into a period to where it just ain't there today kind of thing. Sometimes I have days like that, too. Nothing's going to happen today.

Little Thunder: No inspiration today. (Laughs) Looking back on all these years 59:00you've been photographing, what was a kind of turning point, do you think? You might not have recognized it as a turning point in your photography, but it may have been a point at which you definitely started down this road.

Harragarra: That would be more serious about it. I can look back probably in the late '90s maybe. Back then I was still shooting film, but it was probably recognizing--again I go back to the Black Leggings. Recognizing that those older gentlemen weren't there. I remember one time I had this little webpage and I think I had probably sixteen or seventeen elders in there. Within a matter of 60:00two years, probably three-quarters of them were no longer with us. That was, probably, like I said, in the late '90s. As you watch these dancers get older, and then at some point not be able to participate. That and just getting older, first of all. That would be the turning point thing. Then it became more trying to document and not looking at this as a way, first of all, to make money.

Not looking at this as a way to be artistic. It was just more of a way of documenting because that's what you see. I worked for the Department of 61:00Transportation for a number of years and had the opportunity to travel the state. When I had an opportunity, I would stop at these different tribal offices. Every one of them you can go into and what you're going to recognize, just like when you came in here, is these old photographs. Recognizing that and being exposed to that all the time. Every time you went to a different tribal office, you'll see a photograph that's a hundred years old. That's probably what motivated me and inspired me at that time was, at some point a hundred years from now these images that I have, hopefully, some people will appreciate.

Little Thunder: Right. What's been a high point of your photography so far?

Harragarra: I think it's probably just being able to look back. Looking at the 62:00images that I have of people in the late '80s, early '90s. when I was using film. Although I didn't have very many black and white because it was film and obviously more costly, but probably the significant part about that is just recognizing who they were. Meaning they were older Kiowas, and not only Kiowas, but there were other tribes: Cheyenne, Otoes, Poncas. I don't have very many of 63:00them, but they were some of those people that held a prominent place in their tribe or in their culture. That would probably be, I think, a turning point where I recognized--again, I go back to what my contribution is to my culture.

Little Thunder: How about a low point at which you've been the most discouraged?

Harragarra: Probably, I think every Native photographer at some point has to deal with this and it's simply because most Native photographers are aware of the importance of a cultural event. That's probably one of the first things I 64:00ran into was "What do you do with these photographs? Do you sell them? Do you have permission to do this?" One of the things I recognize, and at some point you have to develop a thick skin to this because you're always going to be criticized, but let's say you could have a group of twenty-five people. Twenty-four of them have no problem with what you do, but there's going to be one that objects. As I got older I realized that that one person, typically, that objects, that's just the way they are. They don't only object to what you're doing, they object to what other people are doing. I have learned how to, I guess, put that into its proper perspective and recognize that there are 65:00twenty people that support what you do. It took a while to kind of get to that point, to recognize that, "Okay, this is just one person." Really when you got to know them a little better, you realized that they were just somebody difficult to begin with.

Little Thunder: Right. Thank you for sharing that. What do you see happening with your photography when you retire?

Harragarra: I hope to concentrate more on this. Finish these projects up, this Black Leggings.

Little Thunder: Maybe do a coffee table--well, it wouldn't be a coffee table book in that case. Maybe do one with other photographs?

Harragarra: Yes, that and I hope to do a book. We talked about that. I have several friends that one's a well-known author. He's done a lot of research on 66:00Kiowa culture. He's agreed to write the text. Hopefully, we get something going here before too long.

Little Thunder: That would be great. Is there anything we forgot to talk about before we take a look at your photographs?

Harragarra: I can't think of anything. I'm sure there is, though. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: If you think of it in between-- We're just going to pause for a minute.

Harragarra: Okay.

Little Thunder: You want to tell us about this photograph?

Harragarra: This one I took I think it was a couple of years ago. It's in the Wichita Wildlife Refuge down there west of Lawton. I've been down there several times. This particular day I got lucky and took all three of these images in 67:00this room during that same visit I was down there. I'd been down here several times before and see one or two buffalo. You wonder where they all are. This day they decided to hang out by the road. So I took this one down there. All these really are in color, but I've changed the color of them and the texture of them by using software. I start out with Lightroom [photo editing software], do some--and then gravitate and change the image, and put it in Photoshop and do a little more touching. Some of the images I just do a straight photo, like this Black Leggings image here. I just want to recreate what I actually saw during that event. But others, to try and get a little more artistic with them, that's 68:00what this one represents is that.

Little Thunder: Right. And here's our Black Leggings photograph.

Harragarra: Yes, I took this--I don't remember exactly what the year was, maybe within five years maybe. Maybe a little longer. This is as the Black Leggings are entering into the dance arena. Several of those members unfortunately have gone on. World War II, primarily, the ones that have gone on. There's a couple of them there, but there's some Vietnam era. One well-known artist, Sherman Chaddlesone, there on the right. Bill Ware in the front, Korean veteran. These images like this I just don't try to do anything artistic with them. I just want to make sure I get the color correction, make sure everything's in focus. Just try to take an accurate image.

Little Thunder: Right, beautiful. Here's another one done in the Wichita Mountains, I guess.

Harragarra: Yes, this was taken at the same time I took this other image here. This happened to catch the clouds bright. A lot of this is just being there at the right time and right place. You could take an image with no clouds and it looks a little flat. Then the buffalo, of course, they move around quite a bit. What was surprising about photographing buffalo is people think they're like cows where they just stay in one place and eat. These guys move constantly. Kind of like a lawnmower, they just keep moving.

Little Thunder: I love the way the gold just bounces. You got it in the flowers and in the clouds.

Harragarra: Yeah, that was taken in the spring.

Little Thunder: Do the Otoe-Missouris have a herd? Buffalo herd?

Harragarra: In the '70s we had a herd. They were very difficult to maintain in a small confined area. They were from a reservation in South Dakota, I believe, where they had large areas to roam. When they were given to us, we tried to maintain them in our property, which wasn't very big back then. They just were a little more difficult. They were used to wide open spaces. That was in the '70s. Currently, we are working on trying to acquire some buffalo, working with a gentleman that has some. A ranch in Amarillo [Texas]--north of Amarillo. We're working on that and I'll be visiting with him today.

Little Thunder: Oh, great. Okay. Here's our last photograph.

Harragarra: This image right here, this is in color. But I have changed this and put it in black and white and reversed the color on it. Meaning the lights were black and the darks became white. I won with that image last year at the Chickasaw show in Sulphur. The good thing about buffalo is you don't have to sign a model release. I photograph them, it's a little easier--

Little Thunder: Right, did you title--

Harragarra: --They're not offended if...

Little Thunder: --this one? (Laughter)

Harragarra: --they didn't have their makeup on right. The title?

Little Thunder: Did you give this one a title?

Harragarra: I don't remember it. I can't remember what I called it--Grass Dancer.

Little Thunder: Oh, that's a nice one, nice one. That's great.

Harragarra: I do spend a lot of time on trying to title them. Some people may not think I do, but I do spend a lot of time on that. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's perfect for that and I like the color, and the shadow. That's great. Thank you very much for your time today, Lester.

Harragarra: Yes, thank you for the opportunity.

------- End of interview -------