Lee Marmon visits

Tonight we had the pleasure of hosting Lee Marmon on campus. He is a native of the Laguna Pueblo here in New Mexico and quite the famed and accomplished photographer. His photo "Engine Rock" sits to the left. He took up photography while he was serving in the army during WWII and has made that his life's work. He's done everything from weddings, to landscapes, to portraits of indian tribespeople and rituals, to photographing the Bob Hope Classic gold tournament in Palm Springs for years. He has hundreds of celebrity portraits he has taken as a result.

He was a WONDERFUL storyteller—which brings me to another little piece of his fame. One of his daughters is Leslie Marmon Silko, one of the most famous and well-reputed Native American authors to ever live. When I was taking a Native American fiction class here back in 04, I read both Ceremony and Storyteller—two of her most famous works. He had a few pictures of her in there as well and told about how she loved to ride her mustang horse. He also mentioned there was a time when she was writing her book Almanac for the Dead when she had to almost hide away in Tucson in order not to be bothered. While she was tucked away, she spent some time creating a mural on a wall depicting some of the book she was writing. Obviously, the whole family is artistic.

Just a few quick facts that bios on the internet will never tell you:
• He started taking wedding shots in 1947.
• He prefers print film to digital. He says digital makes people lazy. He also says digital means you are good at computers and not necessarily at photography. ;)
• When he recently started the project of counting his negatives to prepare them for storage and archiving, he stopped counting at 55,000 because it was too much work!
• There is a display of his photos in the Denver Airport—mostly of southern Utes people
• He is entirely self-taught and has never taken a photography class a day in his life. Unbelievable!