KEITH CARTER
FROM UNCERTAIN TO BLUE
Gelatin Silver Prints
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" Keith Carter has the gift of taking things we have seen all our lives - a watermelon stand, a black country church, a graveyard, a clothesline with chickens underneath, a country store - and giving them another dimension, a beauty that you can't easily be rid of." -Horton Foote, 1988
In 1986, Photographer Keith Carter (b. 1948) set out on a Texas road trip with his wife Patricia in celebration of their ten-year wedding anniversary. Having been inspired by a chance meeting with playwright and National Medal of Arts winner, Horton Foote, Carter decided to focus his observations on his native East Texas as an exotic land. Once the couple was on the road, the rules were simple, one town, one photograph. Keith would take the photographs, while Patricia would reflect and write a few thoughts down.
The Carter's spent nearly a year on and off the road photographing small Texas towns with peculiar names such as Blessing, Earth, Happy, Hoard, Lovelady, Sweet Home and Welcome. The images they brought back would be the basis of Carter's first book, From Uncertain to Blue. The book became a photography landmark that has won both national and international acclaim. These photographs established Carter as one of America’s most promising fine art photographers which has fueled a successful photographic career spanning over twenty-five years.
