Keith Carter (photographer)

Keith Carter (June 3, 1948, Madison, Wisconsin) is an American photographer, educator, and artist noted for his dreamlike photos of people, animals and objects.

A chance meeting with playwright and National Medal of Arts winner Horton Foote, focused his observations on his native East Texas as an exotic land.

His early photographs were based on stories "I had heard or read, black folk tales of dog ghosts and bottle trees, the wonder of children, and using my own white Anglo-Saxon Protestant background, I tried to weave glimpses into what I found instructive, eloquent, and enduring".

His commitment to long term personal projects has resulted in the publication of fourteen monographs including FROM UNCERTAIN TO BLUE (1988), THE BLUE MAN (1990), MOJO (1992), HEAVEN OF ANIMALS (1996), BONES (1996), KEITH CARTER-TWENTY FIVE YEARS (1997), HOLDING VENUS (2000), EZEKIEL'S HORSE (2000), TWO SPIRITS (with * Mauro Fiorese) (2001), OPERA NUDA (2006), DREAM A PLACE OF DREAMS (with * Mauro Fiorese) (2008), A CERTAIN ALCHEMY (2008), FIREFLIES: PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHILDREN (2009), KEITH CARTER - FIFTY YEARS (2018).

Today, Carter is teaching photography at Lamar University, where he is Regents Professor and holds the Endowed Walles Chair of Visual and Performing Arts.