Real NDNZ Re-Take Hollywood showcases native adults in photographs to disrupt and decolonize clichéd portrayals of Native actors. The series “re-takes” and creates classic, iconic portraits of movies stars of yesteryears by replacing those past film icons with contemporary Native American actors. The project shows real Indian actors in the elegant clothes and iconic poses of James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Tony Curtis and others from the classic period of Hollywood films – rather than in the buckskin, feathers, and painted faces featured in most Hollywood films of Indians.

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Pamela J. Peters is a Diné multimedia documentarian from the Navajo Reservation where she was born and raised. Her first clan is Tachii’nii (Red Running into the Water clan), which she uses to identify her photography. Pamela’s work captures not only still images documenting people, cultures, and environments; she also incorporates storytelling with video digital capturing that is completed with a unique and distinctive creative style. Her creative lens explores the history and identity of her participants, which she calls Indigenous Realism, which often places a nostalgic aesthetic in her photographic images.

Her photography has been featured at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, Arts District Los Angeles Photo Collective, These Days Gallery, Venice Arts Gallery, The Main Museum, Triton Contemporary Museum, Glendale ReflectSpace Gallery, and featured in the Los Angeles Times, Reuters News, Cowboys & Indians Magazine, Native Max Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, Pasadena Magazine, Indian Country Today and American Indian Quarterly Journal.