Forty years ago, armed with my Yashica rangefinder and a few rolls of bulk fed Tri-X
Film from my high school's darkroom, a connection was born - a connection so strong that to this
day the thought of having to go without is cruel and unusual punishment. When asked what kind
of pictures I make, I often reply, "Pictures about nothing." I start by looking where something
isn’t…while being mindful of all that could be.

Visual images which elicit emotions often do so by reaching inside us to places that are
often hard to access, hard to articulate, hard to share, hard to hold, and, most significantly, hard
to withhold. Expressive photography is language; it’s the language that commences when words
do not adequately express a concept. In the cortex model of photography as language, light
becomes the noun, texture the adjective, and verbs remain still. In published reviews, my images
have been called "quiet," "sparse," "reductionist," "layered," "symmetrical," and "organic" - a
fairly descriptive assortment of adjectives assembled to articulate what is a disparate body of
work constructed over the last 30 years.

The kind of images I had been making was soon to encounter an unanticipated variation
to its theme. On 08.29.05, the name Katrina would be forever etched into the collective
consciousness of a nation. I arrived Mississippi as a Red Cross Volunteer 36 hours after Katrina
made landfall. My predisposition for images that do not rely on prior or subsequent exposure
would be challenged by the reality that there would be no escaping the perfect storm. Nor, did
there seem to be any escape from crafting a visual language where the story could not be
dismissed or disposed of unless one was complicit in the under-reporting of what would become
the greatest act of non-disclosure by a national media. I was in Mississippi without obligation or
influence of state or federal government nor national or local media. The State of Mississippi (or
perhaps more aptly named, than its current name which everyone knows how to spell, The State
of Chaos) fell victim to a vicious, reckless, liquid Godzilla with total disregard for anything in
her path, whose devastating consumption of property that ominous early Thursday morning in
late September had never before been matched. The illuminated red laser dot marking the storm's
target was positioned upon the heart of Mississippi’s coastal hub of Gulfport. Its reach would be
seen as far inland as Hattiesburg, Jackson, and the Delta. Upon its departure, Hurricane Katrina
would become the most notorious natural disaster to ever strike the United States. 

While photojournalism has shared the same museum walls generally reserved for fine art
photography and fine art photography has shared the newsprint of the photojournalists, what
evolved over four years was, and still remains, relatively uncharted territory. The
photojournalist's intent and orientation is that of telling a visual story through a series of
contiguous image groups while my personal orientation and visual interpretation of the world is
founded in an image-based fine art context. The pictures that resulted during my four years in
Mississippi were an unusual commingling of two antithetically opposite methodologies within
the same general genre. When aesthetic and fact commingle, the viewer often finds singular
images that speak as loud or louder then the aggregate body of work itself. Likewise, many may
find that it is the connectedness of the images as one element that provides the observer with
information that a single image could not fully deliver.

The last 10 years has been a period when the tools to assist in articulating visual content
have never been more powerful and precise, or less forgiving. Thus, making the need for a
consensus of thought as to how we revise, amend, and implement what is quickly becoming
known as New Media. Much like the new math which eventually replaced the old, New Media
will require the learning or relearning of much of what was once universally accepted methodology
for educators, artists, journalists, and others whose vocation intersects the
traditional procedures and universally agreed upon theory for working in the analog world.

From silver to silicon, the joy of looking at, talking about, and making pictures grows
exponentially with each and every new discovery lurking around the corner or when one realizes
that this particular new technology is perhaps as swift-moving and mercurial as it was just a
moment ago relevant. When one realizes the frailty of the science that aids in elevating both art
and language, one must admit that technology, for all of its positive virtues, generates as it main
byproduct…obsolescence.

My personal journey is a search for the quiet place where light reveals rather than
obscures, visual chaos is silenced, and the moment is defined and preserved by nothing more
than the smooth, whisper quiet click of my Leica’s shutter. The pure joy inherent in revisiting my
moment contains a satisfaction that will never change, regardless of how rapidly the technology
does change. What remains constant for me is the confirmation of voice in expressive image
making. My criterion is and continues to be whether or not the print executed is better then my
mind's eye recall of its reality. This still remains the single, most compelling motivation I find
making impossible any segregation of my vocation from avocation; they are one and the same. I
cannot imagine doing anything else. I grab the dusty lightproof box regardless of its analog or
digital orientation. In part, this indiscriminate use led to a hybrid image that, well-crafted,
contains an inherent beauty not otherwise revealed.

Beginning as a negative and executed to print using today's digital tools – a myriad of
media, inks, hardware and software options – the resulting product is a cross-pollination that
produces a beautiful, fade-resistant, and stabile print. The Wilhelm Imaging Research Institute
has determined through testing that a digital print of today will have a lifespan that equals and
will likely exceed that of a textbook produced silver gelatin darkroom print. The commingling of
analog and digital techniques yields a print where theory and practice find a harmonious co-
existence. All digital cameras manufactured today include analog components. And, a well-
exposed drum scan from a negative increases dynamic range beyond anything perceptibly seen
in an analog print. It exceeds what would reasonably be expected from a print executed by a
master printer in an analog darkroom environment. The digital process became the key to
unlocking visual information and layers of texture in both subtle shadow and highlight detail that
was always inherent in the negative though imperceptible and allows for its transfer to the print.
The digital images I have made from well-exposed and scanned negatives often yield prints with
a patina that gives my images a painterly quality, the final finishing visual element needed before
my signature is penciled in on the verso of the print. Not to suggest that this quality wasn’t
always there, but otherwise confirming that the technology of today has evolved to where it can
reproduce what was once unnoticeable in any analog print.

Other then driving a car, no egalitarian pursuit has ever rivaled that of today's fascination
with photography - a pursuit where a collective ideology shares in a similar satisfaction and joy
when discovering they are responsible in making a serendipitous expressive picture, even if it is
the result of an accident or good fortune. The works of those who have elevated voyeurism to
craft, speak as the diction of a trained actor on Broadway, the voice of Andrea Bocelli, or the
laughter elicited by the brilliance of the late George Carlin. Photography, indeed, has acquired its
voice ….and a rather eclectic one. What photography does do best is speak at a volume and
clarity that is best listened to in complete silence… without ever uttering a sound.


Keith Fishman makes his home in Santa Barbara, California.