Photos of the Native American West

Journey to historic Native American sites (from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) through over 50 full-page color photographs on high-quality gloss paper by Eric Thome, a fine artist. Photographs from the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico (a World Heritage Site continuously occupied for around 1,000 years) comprise about one-third of the photos in this book. Other photo subjects include petroglyphs and pictographs, geoglyphs (similar to Peru's famous Nazca Lines), cliff dwellings, ancient architecture and ruins, paintings from California Mission Indians in the 1821 Mission San Miguel Arcàngel, the remains of a Ghost Dance circle (from the 1872-73 Modoc War), a Tlingit Totem Pole and more.

Journey to historic Native American sites (from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) through over 50 full-page color photographs on high-quality gloss paper by Eric Thome, a fine artist. Photographs from the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico (a World Heritage Site continuously occupied for around 1,000 years) comprise about one-third of the photos in this book. Other photo subjects include petroglyphs and pictographs (from hundreds to thousands of years ago) created by Archaic, Ancestral Puebloan, Fremont, Ute, Shoshone, Northern Paiute and Yokuts people (or their ancestors) and geoglyphs (similar to Peru's famous Nazca Lines) from the Aha Macav (Mojave) or Quechan (Yuma) people. This book also contains photos of cliff dwellings, ancient architecture and ruins from the Ancestral Pueblo and Sinagua cultures, paintings from California Mission Indians (under the direction of a Spanish artist) in the 1821 Mission San Miguel Arcàngel, the remains of a Ghost Dance circle (from the 1872-73 Modoc War), a Tlingit Totem Pole and more.

Eric Thome grew up outside of Baltimore, Maryland. Eric was accepted into Maryland Institute College of Art as a Graphic Design major, but the Foundation (Freshman) year also required art history, sculpture, color theory, drawing, and painting classes. Eric moved to Portland, Oregon, and transferred to the Pacific Northwest College of Art the following year. After a graphic design internship during his junior year, Eric changed his major to Inter-Media Art (taking printmaking, photography, and video classes). Eric started with black-and-white photography courses in the darkroom at PNCA. Eric began photographing what was remaining at ghost town sites in 2005. These vanishing places fueled Eric's drive to document the remains of the American West as artistically as possible, despite potential constraints of a location (such as modernity, junk or other non-historic distractions). Natural lighting, weather conditions, wildfire smoke, and other issues also affect on-location shooting. Beginning with his Portland darkroom days, Eric was also interested in photographing historic buildings, signs, and sites from living towns and cities (which are also being vandalized and disappearing). Eric has been interested in Native American cultures, arts and activism since his early teenage years. Eric has traveled to places he finds exciting and awe-inspiring, taking him through more beautiful scenery than he can photograph during thoroughly planned trips.