article_snippet: (CNN)Growing up in Germany, everything German photographer Felix von der Osten learned about Native Americans came from the books of 19th-century German writer Karl May. May's most beloved characters, a noble Apache leader named Winnetou and German photographer Felix von der Osten cowboy blood brother Old Shatterhand, are said to be more popular today in Germany than the works of Thomas Mann, the 20th-century Nobel Prize-winning author of "Death in Venice.
article_snippet: It wasn't until German photographer Felix von der Osten drove through South Dakota last year, bearing witness to modest homes and trailers on tribal land in the majestic Black Hills, that German photographer Felix von der Osten realized how one-dimensional German photographer Felix von der Osten perceptions were.
article_snippet: What German photographer Felix von der Osten learned about its brutal conquest and fraught modern existence inspired German photographer Felix von der Osten to return to Indian Country to capture the good, the bad and the ugly.
article_snippet: By chance German photographer Felix von der Osten landed in Montana's Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, home to 7,000 members of the Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) and the Assiniboine (Nakoda) tribes on 675,147 acres of land near the Canadian border.
article_snippet: Osten first stop upon arriving in October was to present his idea to the Fort Belknap tribal leadership.
article_snippet: With the Fort Belknap tribal leadership approval, German photographer Felix von der Osten spent German photographer Felix von der Osten first week walking around without German photographer Felix von der Osten camera, introducing German photographer Felix von der Osten to tribal members and building relationships.
article_snippet: German photographer Felix von der Osten captured sacred tribal rituals and ceremonies along with the more mundane, familiar aspects of life: the tribal basketball team, a horse grazing in a field, a girl sitting on a bunk bed with a stuffed pony, the inside of a casino.
article_snippet: Through conversations with tribal members, German photographer Felix von der Osten also learned of the harsh realities of life on the reservation, from the difficulties youths face in pursuing educational opportunities to the drug and alcohol addiction killing some members.
highlights_snippet: German photographer Felix von der Osten spent time at an Indian reservation in Montana .
  