Portrait of Leonard Peltier heading to Library of Congress

BELCOURT, N.D. (KVRR) – Leonard Peltier is on home confinement here in North Dakota, But he’s still headed to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

That’s after a photo session with Bismarck-based wet plate photographer Shane Balkowitsch.

Peltier sat for a two-hour portrait session in late March for a series of images that capture the controversial convict and Native American rights activist after five decades in federal prison.

Peltier is under house arrest after former president Joe Biden commuted his life prison sentence. Peltier was convicted of murder in the shooting deaths of two FBI agents on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Balkowitsch had to get permission from federal prisons officials to do the shoot, and traveled to Peltier’s remote Belcourt home with his civil-war era equipment and darkroom.

He says people who think Peltier shouldn’t be in a national museum should recall that, like him or not, he’s still part of the nation’s history.

The Smithsonian museum is also requesting one of the Peltier plates, entitled “Doing Time,” said Balkowitsch.

His portrait of boxer Evander Holyfield is already in the Smithsonian.

He sent the plate “Clemency” to the Library of Congress shortly after producing it.

Balkowitsch Zoomed in live to the Morning Show to talk about how the photo shoot came into being, the pressure he felt to document such an important figure in modern history, and why he’s chosen to spend so much of his career documenting the lives of modern Native Americans.

For more information:

http://sharoncol.balkowitsch.com/2020plates.htm

https://www.loc.gov/