Sonoma photographer sets sight on Standing Rock

'So much has happened since my trip to Standing Rock, it's hard to make sense of it all,' says photographer Lisa Rani. The San Francisco-born artist – who recently retired from her career as a union stage hand – has lived in Sonoma since last May, when she relocated to the Valley to devote herself to her original passion of photography. She primarily works for real estate agents, capturing the qualities of property for sale.

But last November, having become moved by news reports from Standing Rock – where several Native American tribes have been protesting for months against the treaty-violating construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across land and beneath water the tribes consider to be sacred land – Rani drove out to North Dakota. Accompanied by her friend Judy Talaugon, she primarily went to deliver funds and supplies in support of the protesters.

Not surprisingly, she brought her camera.

Rani's exhibition of photographs from Standing Rock opens this weekend (Saturday, Feb. 4) at Art Escape in Boyes Hot Springs. The show features approximately 20 of Rani's photographs, the majority of them focused on the stark, vast natural environment around the protest sites, with relatively few shots of the protest itself.

'My main intent was to capture the landscape,' Rani says. 'I didn't want to take photos within the camp. The protesters are there to protect the land and the water. The news has been so full of photos of the violence the police have done to the peaceful protesters. I thought I would turn my cameras away from that, and show people what it is those protesters are fighting for.'

That land, she says, is like none other she's seen.

'It's flat,' she says. 'It's very, very flat. Standing Rock is on a plateau, 5,000 feet above sea level, but it's just plains and sky in every direction. Clouds and sky and land, that's all you see. There are a lot of wild horses, too. And the wind, wow. The wind is fierce!'

Rani says she was there for the first snowfall of the year.

'That was incredible,' she recalls. It was just a light dusting, but to everyone there, it felt like a kind of blessing from nature, all that beautiful snow.'

Since then, weather conditions have become punishing for everyone still present at the site. And yet the protesters continue, bolstered by President Trump's recent actions in support of the pipeline, and the original plans to build it beneath the area's drinking water supply.

Rani's exhibit, therefore, includes a number of shots of water. "They want to protect their water, to keep it clean and safe,' she says. 'Why is that so hard to understand?'

Putting the show together, Rani admits, has been an emotional experience.

'Sometimes, all I want to do is go back to Standing Rock,' she says. 'It felt like such an honor to be there.'

Email David at david.templeton@sonomanews.com.