These photographers portray their cultures not as vanishing, but as part of a lively, assertive group of people confident about the importance of their cultures in the past, their importance to the present, and their influence on the future. They sometimes use images identified with Indian cultures, but these images are not used as emblems of a generic unified past. Instead the images carry specific messages or stories about how individual artists interpret family and tribal histories, how they experience the present, or what they project for the future. Sometimes there are no Indian signifiers at all except in written messages on the photographs or in captions. These photographers portray Native people with a wide range of physical and attitudinal characteristics.
Some works are ironic or humorous, others angry, sophisticated, or reflective.
The artists experiment with a wide range of photographic techniques. While sometimes women use straight photography and the silver print, at other times they use oil paint on photographs, hand-tint black and white photographs, photomontage, collage, or even use liquid light on muslin. In other words, they employ all the various techniques available to contemporary photographers. The women refuse to photograph some parts of their culture, especially religious objects and rituals, which most Native people feel inappropriate to represent visually. Many are hesitant to photograph people of cultures other than their own, feeling that Euro-Americans have been particularly insensitive and intrusive in their photography of indigenous cultures.