Gina McKlveen, Art Correspondent
“Imagine instead of posting your life on your social media, imagine you are a member of a community where you can print your photographs, and once a week, you come to an event where you can share those with other people. You can share the work you’ve made, which gives you time to really understand and learn what your work is. And you don’t have to come and say ‘I made this photograph with a Nikon this and that, with this lens, and F8 at 125’—all of that can fade away because the work is what matters now. The work is what matters, not how you made it. I want to see the work become what’s important.”
For Robert Ketcham, imagining a place to practice photography that focuses on seeing the photograph just as much as seeing the photographer, has been a work in progress. However, when Ketcham first entered the building located in downtown Braddock, he captured a vision of what this place could be.
“The building kind of chose me,” Ketcham said. “I was working for Gregg Kander, [who] was in the middle of the Ohringer building, and he bought another property up the street that everyone just knew of, which had been Woolworth’s. That’s as far back as anybody went. It took me a lot of digging to figure out that Andrew Carnegie, himself, in 1891, bought that piece of property where the building at 818 Braddock Ave, it’s called the Braddock Arts and Media building now, where Braddock Photo Works will be housed, was bought to move the Carnegie Cooperative Store.”
He described looking at the back of the first floor, which has a 15-foot ceiling, and he thought, “I could do a dark room here. This could be something related to photography, and this is in 2019 that I’m starting to have these ideas.”
He imagined it much like the former Pittsburgh Filmmakers, where people could use a traditional dark room or computers, including any editing software for digital photography.
“It was always not far from my mind that this would be a great photo center,” Ketcham stated. “I want to make sure that this space has what every photographer or aspiring photographer or retired photographer or anybody with even a casual interest in photography would want to visit and learn more about what we do.”
Eventually, Ketcham decided he needed to start a nonprofit focused on photography education. In naming the new nonprofit, Ketcham resolved on Braddock Photo Works. He had considered using “Cooperative” to tie into the building’s historical lineage. Still, he intentionally chose “Works” as a homage to Edgar Thomson Steel Works and the US Steel Mills of Pittsburgh, especially in Braddock.
“Works is a place where work is done, where things are made…It told the story in the name, which is what I wanted.”
Ketcham was just as intentional about selecting Braddock as the location for his photography nonprofit. As Ketcham describes it, when he first came to Pittsburgh in 2002, he asked to see the steel mills and was told that there weren’t any, except in Braddock, but he shouldn’t go there. “That’s all I needed to hear,” Ketcham reflected, “I was here [in Braddock] with a camera immediately and have been photographing Braddock ever since.”
This year, Braddock Photo Works has already engaged with the community in meaningful ways. From an introductory community gathering at Public House in February of this year to the first of many photo walks around Braddock, taking place just this past October, what happens inside the building is equally important to Ketcham as what happens to the community outside it.
“Our first event as Braddock Photo Works was recently a partnership with the American Society of Media Photographers, Pittsburgh branch, to do a photo walk in Braddock, and the response was overwhelming. We had a great group of photographers who were very enthusiastic about photography, but by the time they left, they were enthusiastic about Braddock.
“It was just so gratifying to watch as everyone just went off, they would see something, and they would go off to make a photograph that they wanted. And that’s exactly what I wanted to see. I wanted to see people immersed in photography, then come together with people they didn’t know, never met, to discuss things, introduce themselves, and talk about their work and their goals in photography. Over the course of 5-6 hours, that’s what happened.”
Ketcham’s own photography, which he primarily exhibits in black and white, also documents the changing landscape of Braddock and now seeks to share it with and contribute to the community he knows and honors so well.
“I had a camera firmly in my hand since I was 15 years old,” Ketcham continued, “My photography began in the dark room. I got tired of paying someone else to develop my film, so I took the photography classes. When I had a study hall, I would get a pass to go to the darkroom. After school, as long as I could stay, I would work in the dark room.
“There’s almost nowhere to go that you can use a dark room…where you can go and complete the process. While you’re developing the film, you’re learning to interpret your vision. What you have tried to make in the camera into a negative, and ultimately into a print…I want everybody to have the full experience of what making a photograph can be.
“Photography has been around for a long time. And a lot of the technique and process have come and gone. But a lot of those alternative, old processes like tin type, platinum printing…and all of these absolutely gorgeous and magnificent ways to make a print exist… For any of these processes, I want to be able to offer the education and facilities where they can be done.
“The educational component of [Braddock] Photo Works would also include the basics, looking at photographs. There are all kinds of different ways to, even people who are not photographers could take advantage of something like that—seeing, learning to see again. Part of the ultimate goal from doing classes with kids, local kids, summer programs, [is] you get to keep the camera we got you. Those are the things I look forward to seeing.”
In our modern society, teaching people to see again has become increasingly important, given the shortened attention spans caused by social media scrolling and the various risks posed by an onslaught of AI-generated images. Ketcham is rightfully concerned about how AI will affect the future of photography.
“From a generative standpoint, it’s a genie that you can’t put back in the bottle. It’s cheap, it’s the lazy way out as opposed to sending a photographer to use their brain and imagination and skills and talent, to make a photograph… I don’t want AI to doctor my photo. The idea is to get it right in the camera so that you don’t have to do that. And that goes all the way back to film: you’re spending less time in the darkroom trying to correct a print. Get it right in the camera, you don’t have to worry about it.”
For Braddock Photo Works’ role in a mainstream AI-dominated world, Ketcham stated, “All I want to do, in my own little piece of the world, is provide an alternative. Ketcham went on to quote one of his favorite quotes from Alfred Stieglitz, an early pioneer in the movement to make photography seen as art. The quote, “Photography is not just about capturing what’s in front of you; it’s about capturing what’s inside of you as well,” reflects much more about the process of making a photograph, and for Ketcham, “That’s something that I can’t imagine AI will ever do.”
Having stood in the place where Braddock Photo Works will eventually be filed with seasoned and budding photographers, I can say with confidence this space is much needed for the arts in Pittsburgh. Its interior mirrors the collaborative hub of any great artistic community, and Braddock is all the better for it. The exterior, adorned with colored lights and mural art painted by internationally recognized artists, is a beacon for the future of Braddock.
My conversation with Ketcham covered more subjects than this article can convey, including the current risks to investigative journalists, the return of Polaroid cameras among Gen Z, Ketcham’s personal pet peeve, his Henry Project, and much more. For the complete conversation, take a listen below. To stay updated on Braddock Photo Works, follow along on Instagram @braddock_photo_works. Any questions on how to get involved, please get in touch with Robert Ketcham directly through his website: https://rjketchamphotography.com/contact/
-GM
