Keri Pickett (born in 1959, Charleston, S.C.) is an American
photographer, author and filmmaker. Pickett's work "pulls subjects
from the edges of public awareness to the center of the frame".
Pickett was first exposed to photography as a child through her
figure-skater/photographer uncle Roy Blakey and years later, as an
adult, she made a film about his life.Pickett graduated with a B.A.
degree in photography from Moorhead State University in Minnesota with
minors in Art History and Women's Studies. After graduation in 1983,
Pickett moved in with her photographer uncle Roy Blakey in New York
for a short time while starting an internship under the direction of
American photographer Fred W. McDarrah at the Village Voice. In 1987,
after Pickett was diagnosed with Burkett's lymphoma, a rare cancer
characterized by the rapid growth of tumors in the body, she left New
York and returned to Minnesota to begin chemotherapy. During the two
years of Pickett's treatment, she concentrated on her photographic
work: Kids Coping with Life-Threatening Illness. Where once she had
thought she was too young to die, Pickett's paradigm shifted as she
photographed and became friends with children in the hospital who were
dying of cancer. Pickett says, "When I was on chemotherapy I was so
upbeat and positive that this started coming out in my pictures. I was
a positive example to people. I started taking photos of kids with
life-threatening illnesses, and my work switched....I starting putting
more of myself into the work."In 1995, Pickett published Love in the
90s. B.B. and Jo, The Story of a Lifelong Love, A Granddaughter's
Portrait, black-and-white photographs of her grandparents that she
took when they were in their 90s, interwoven with the love and
courtship letters they wrote to each other beginning in 1928. The book
won the American Photography Book Award for 1995. Photographs of her
grandparents have appeared in Life, German and German Geo and the
Village Voice (cover).Pickett's Lambda Literary Award-winning book
Faeries, published by Aperture Books with a foreword by James
Broughton, records the life and personality of gay men who
self-identify as Radical Faeries and gather every summer off-the-grid
in a celebration of identity. Begun in 1994, the project was shot over
six years at an annual ten-day meeting in the northern Minnesota
sanctuary called Kawashaway. Pickett says that she is "someone who
honors and celebrates the unique mix of masculine and feminine in
everybody".
photographer, author and filmmaker. Pickett's work "pulls subjects
from the edges of public awareness to the center of the frame".
Pickett was first exposed to photography as a child through her
figure-skater/photographer uncle Roy Blakey and years later, as an
adult, she made a film about his life.Pickett graduated with a B.A.
degree in photography from Moorhead State University in Minnesota with
minors in Art History and Women's Studies. After graduation in 1983,
Pickett moved in with her photographer uncle Roy Blakey in New York
for a short time while starting an internship under the direction of
American photographer Fred W. McDarrah at the Village Voice. In 1987,
after Pickett was diagnosed with Burkett's lymphoma, a rare cancer
characterized by the rapid growth of tumors in the body, she left New
York and returned to Minnesota to begin chemotherapy. During the two
years of Pickett's treatment, she concentrated on her photographic
work: Kids Coping with Life-Threatening Illness. Where once she had
thought she was too young to die, Pickett's paradigm shifted as she
photographed and became friends with children in the hospital who were
dying of cancer. Pickett says, "When I was on chemotherapy I was so
upbeat and positive that this started coming out in my pictures. I was
a positive example to people. I started taking photos of kids with
life-threatening illnesses, and my work switched....I starting putting
more of myself into the work."In 1995, Pickett published Love in the
90s. B.B. and Jo, The Story of a Lifelong Love, A Granddaughter's
Portrait, black-and-white photographs of her grandparents that she
took when they were in their 90s, interwoven with the love and
courtship letters they wrote to each other beginning in 1928. The book
won the American Photography Book Award for 1995. Photographs of her
grandparents have appeared in Life, German and German Geo and the
Village Voice (cover).Pickett's Lambda Literary Award-winning book
Faeries, published by Aperture Books with a foreword by James
Broughton, records the life and personality of gay men who
self-identify as Radical Faeries and gather every summer off-the-grid
in a celebration of identity. Begun in 1994, the project was shot over
six years at an annual ten-day meeting in the northern Minnesota
sanctuary called Kawashaway. Pickett says that she is "someone who
honors and celebrates the unique mix of masculine and feminine in
everybody".
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