Photography is a central motif in Medicine River, which both literally embodies and figuratively represents the Intersections of Past and Present with which the novel is preoccupied. Photographs are reminders of the past. They freeze a moment in time and hold it in place so that it can always be revisited. That is very much the case for David Plume, for whom the photograph of himself at Wounded Knee shows his presence at a defining moment in contemporary Indigenous history. But he also defines himself and his values in terms of his participation in the protest. He is captured by the moment, as much as the photo captures the moment.

Photographs are not necessarily revealing of the past they represent, though. As Will says of an old granny in the town portrait he takes, she was “looking right at the camera with the same flat expression that my mother had, as though she could see something farther on and out of sight” (73). Her expression itself expresses something unknowable. Likewise, the few photos that Will has of his absent father do not bring him any closer or make him known to Will in any way.