Sharon Eva Grainger, a professional photographer and naturalist, holds degrees in Psychology and Anthropology from Eastern Washington University. With five generations of artists behind her, she has developed a portfolio of images covering indigenous cultures, herbal medicine, and ethnobotany. During her 55 years in the Pacific Northwest, she has developed close ties to the Colville Confederated Tribes of northeastern Washington State, who have shared their culture and lore with her. In addition, she has recently been working in the remote valleys of Mexico’s Copper Canyon with the Tarahumara people as part of the Opening Hearts project, originally sponsored by Lindblad Expeditions (with whom she has traveled the west coast of North America, the Baltic States of Northern Europe, and the waters and lands of Scandinavia). 

She is currently involved in long-term collaborative work with the Kwakwaka’wakw in Alert Bay, helping facilitate research through visual as well as audio recordings. Her photographs have become the subject of many exhibitions in the U’mista Cultural Centre. 

In the past decade, Grainger has published photographs in the Time-Life book Indians of the Western Range, and the Smithsonian’s Handbook to North American Indians.