when stuff like this happens I get chills

Powwow LOve

This evening I was checking a book out at the North Idaho College Library. I noticed a beautiful beaded breast plate just behind the counter. I asked the librarian about it and she said that she made it. I asked her if it was intended for a powwow dancer's regalia. She said yes. We talked a bit about beads and powwows. I asked her if she was Native American and she said no but her son was.  She added that he was also a powwow dancer.

I told her that for fun I had been taking pictures at Julyamsh the last couple years and that a friend had told me my pictures were good enough to sell but that I didn't feel right selling them without model releases. She told me she could probably help me identify some of the people in the pictures. "Wow, this is great," I thought. "How lucky to run into her." I had been wondering how I'd find the people I'd photographed. The Julyamsh Powwow is one the biggest with 500+- dancers.

Then she said she wanted to show me a picture of her son on her computer. She had a Facebook page upen with.........a very familiar picture...er...uh...one of my pictures. She pointed out her son, immediately I blurted out, "That's my picture!"

She said she'd gotten it off the internet. I am very aware that anyone can snatch anything on the net. When I post photos or blogs I do so with the expectation that I am putting content out there without control over what happens to it, but I had never had this fact gob-smack me so.

It turns out that the girl in the picture, the one with her back to the camera, just died. Everyone is grieving. This picture seems to bringing them a bit of comfort. I never anticipated such an effect from one of my pictures.

My original post here on Gaia.com is here: http://zzzoom.gaia.com/blog/2007/7/julyamsh_powwow

I have cross-posted this on my new blog Breathe here: http://blog.omsah.com/?p=77