Raised on the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, Tyrel is a Hunkpapa Lakota and Ihanktowanna Dakota, with German descent. His upbringing with the strong influence of his Lakota and Dakota ancestry and culture shapes his photography and art.

He seeks to raise and empower Indigenous voices across the continent known as North America. He has re-purposed photography, long a tool used to create monolithic caricatures of Native peoples and “poverty porn,” to more accurately show the lifeways of people as they live and not as idealized or romanticized images.

Website: https://www.istamaza.com/
IG: ista_maza