Who used soft focus with other romantic pictorial methods to make nostalgic views of these "vanishing noble savages?
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Answer: The photographer Edward S. Curtis is well-known for his use of soft focus and other romantic pictorial techniques in his portraits of Native Americans. Curtis embarked on a monumental project to document the lives and cultures of Native American peoples in a series of works called "The North American Indian." In his work, he often presented Native Americans as "noble savages," a term that denotes a stereotypical and romanticized idea of indigenous peoples living in harmony with nature and possessing innate nobility outside the influence of modern civilization. Curtis's photography has been both praised for its artistic beauty and criticized for its romanticization and staging of indigenous culture, which sometimes strayed from accurate ethnographic representation.