Keith Carter, Fine Art Photographer

I am addicted to sharing new photography discoveries in spite of the fact that what I enjoy often is not shared by many other amateur photographers.

I recently discovered an outstanding fine art photographer living in Beaumont, Texas, and I would like to introduce you to, Keith Carter. His work and his thinking on photography really resonates with me although he will probably confuse many amateur photographers. If he does just tune out, it’s okay. For those of you who pursue photography as a form of art, you should get a lot out of Keith’s words and work. I could write several pages but instead I will try to keep this short, post some links and let you take it where you wish.

There are two stories that occur in more than one of the links on You Tube, but I would like to briefly recount one of them here because I feel it is very important advice. It is about Keith first meeting Horton Foote. Horton is a playwright that grew up in Wharton, Texas. His most familiar work for those that do not follow playwrights would be the screen adaptation of Harper Lee’s, Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Keith attended a screening and lecture by Horton Foote at the 1894 Opera House in Galveston. Horton told a story from his boyhood that I feel has a lot of good advice for photographers that wish to produce art. Horton recounts telling one of his high school teachers that he wanted to be an actor and an artist. The teacher’s advice was priceless. First, he reminded Horton that he was living in an agricultural community that didn’t place a great value on art, so becoming an artist was going to be difficult for him. The teacher also told Horton that there were three things that you must do if you want to pursue art. You have to know the history of your own medium. You have to be a product of your own time; you have to make art in your own generational way. You have to belong to a place. Horton went on to some success in Hollywood and New York but it wasn’t satisfying and he discovered the reason was his lack of place. He decided to concentrate his work on places like Wharton, small, rural, agricultural communities and the stories that are found there. He became a very successful playwright.

Keith was inspired by Horton Foote’s story and went back to Beaumont determined to make his art about his place, Beaumont, and places like Beaumont He has had a very successful career commercially but mostly as an fine art photographer.

A couple of times Keith mentions the word transcendental. I am very much a Transcendentalist and one of my personal favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson is, If you cannot find art outside your door, you will never find art. This story told by Horton Foote seems to say much the same thing. Your own front door, or doors, your past is who you become as a person and becomes a part of any art you will ever accomplish. Otherwise what you do with a camera becomes simply a retelling of someone else’s life.

There is also a story told by the photographer Frederick Sommer where he says that we never really see anything new. Regardless of where we go, no matter how splendid or how exotic—we do not see anything new. We take with us the same vision we started with.  That is a very interesting concept but from looking at the photographs of friends that are able to travel the world I feel there is a great deal of truth in that statement.

The other good story Keith tells is about his book, Uncertain to Blue. He and his wife, Pat, picked out 100 small Texas towns that had esoteric names like Uncertain, Blue, Art, Poetry, Ding Dong, Dime Box. Keith set himself a goal of taking one photograph in each of these towns that defined the town to him but would not be about the name. They spent three years on this project which became his first book. He didn’t seem to find a lot of my favorites, Muleshoe, Bacon Switch, Gun Barrel City.

A few quotes from Keith’s lectures and interviews that strongly resonate with me

Your projects follow your life, in some respects. Or at least they do in my case. Sometimes you just stand mute in front of the mystery of your own life.  Or of those who you love. –Keith Carter   [Isn’t that a marvelous statement—sometimes you just stand mute in front of the mystery of your own life?]

The thing about art is, at least in my world, art changes as life changes. I don’t want to do the same thing over and over. I don’t want to make photographs like I did back then. I can’t make that anymore. I’m not that same person.  –Keith Carter

You don’t deconstruct it (the photograph) as you go along. You just know there is something significant going on and you make the picture. Just make the picture. You have the rest of your life to figure out what it means. –Keith Carter

No rules. In the creative arts, rules are the pejorative term. No rules. –Keith Carter

If your goal is to make art you had better make uncertainty your friend rather than some kind of nemesis because she will always be whispering in your ear. –Keith Carter

If you are an artist and you have idiosyncrasies or obsessions it probably is a good thing to let them hang out to dry, to believe in them. If people want to laugh or whatever, let them, because that is part and parcel of what defines you. –Keith Carter

Here is a link to Keith Carter, The Artist Series by Ted Forbes. If you find it of value, search Keith Carter on You Tube there are several links. If you are inclined toward photography as an art, Keith is very much worth following.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjuWESzRhWo