Following Leroy

In my last blog I told of going on a workshop to northern Arizona with a group. One of the reasons I chose that workshop was the photographer who led it, Leroy DeJolie. I had seen his work in magazines and always admired the look and feel of them, but other than that I didn't know much about him at all except for one thing. Leroy is Navajo and we were going to spend all of our time on Navajo tribal land.



It's been a couple of years since then but I can still hear Leroy yelling at me as he ran off over the dunes in this image to "follow me and put your tripod where I mark the sand".
He didn't speak a whole lot, maybe because of his heritage, but when he did, you paid attention. He had a way about him.

The Yebachai and the Totem Pole

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Land

Leroy's knowledge of photograpy and the locations we visited was only surpassed by his love of his native people and it turned a photo workshop into something more. It gave me just a brief look into what a person's family history could mean and I thank him for sharing that.