Honoring speakers of endangered languages with tintype photography

“When Lucille saw her tintype, she started to speak a very traditional prayer in her own language. She spoke a lot about how she in that moment felt connected to those who had come before her," says BYU photography grad Jordan Layton. Those words illustrate what Layton's capstone project meant to him and to those he served.

BYU graduates are inspired by love for God and His children, and Layton is no exception. When he learned that a vast number of languages are disappearing, he set out to take portraits of the last known speakers of languages that are about to be lost. He called this capstone project Vanishing Voices and recruited the help of his photography professor Paul Adams.

Instead of using digital photography, Layton and Adams chose to capture their subjects on large 20-by-24-inch tintype metal plates. “Tintypes are one of the most permanent and archival kind of prints,” says Layton. “That, in juxtaposition with how quickly these languages and cultures are dying out, just felt really symbolic and important.”

“A lot of these elders that we’re photographing don’t really consider themselves to be all that special,” Adams says. “Then when they see themselves photographed the same way that they have seen their ancestors photographed, . . . they are moved to tears.”

Layton and Adams traveled to 10 locations in Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, and California, and they have photographed speakers of nine different endangered Native American languages. A process of light, each tintype is unique—just like the person and language the image represents.