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He hadn't planned to take photos on this trip home. It was Summer 2004, and the first time in many years that artist Kimowan McLain was spending more than a week or so on the Cree Indian reservation where he grew up in Western Canada. The only camera he packed — a polaroid.
Planning to stay for a month, McLain settled in. He painted the drums that are used in community celebrations, and he took part in singing and stick games. "I never felt so present before," he says. And then, he started taking pictures. He felt compelled.
With the polaroid, McLain couldn't control the lighting. But he could play with where his shadow loomed in relation to the subject. When his shadow does appear, it's as if "I'm alive in the photo," he says. He felt part of the reservation again.
The lake's beauty is obvious. But many people call the street he photographed, in the city of Edmonton, a ghetto. On that street walk teenage prostitutes, drug dealers, teenage mothers pushing baby strollers. But when the sun sets, for about two hours "everything looks so beautiful," McLain says. "Faces are glowing golden brown."
McLain once again felt ownership of this land, the good and the bad. "This is my lake," he says. "These are my streets." The streets are a three-hour drive away from the reservation. But because the Indian community often congregates there, "I thought of it metaphorically," he says, "as an unofficial reservation in the city."
McLain says that in much of his previous artwork he has focused on getting the technical details perfect. But with these photos, the former newspaperman and political cartoonist was motivated more by the story he wanted to tell. "I feel these are visual notes that I took about an issue that I want to go back and explore," McLain says. "I don't have enough images. But I will get more."
