Keri Advocat
Keri Advocat died of pneumonia early on January 6, 1997; she was not quite 23. A chronic lung illness, scleroderma, which she revealed to very few of her many many friends, made the simplest cold a cause for concern.
So on the list of her manifest qualities we put, at the very top, bravery.
At first an online acquaintance, then my assistant on a street photography project, Keri soon became a friend and colleague. I admired her eye and her determination (she came to New York in lieu of going to college), and valued her judgement and advice enormously.
Keri was the first photographer I knew who embraced the idiom of the World Wide Web in her work, in both content and presentation, and was gaining recognition as such. Her help was invaluable to me in creating my first Web site.
Her own site, at www.snob.net, was at once an evolving professional portfolio and meditation on the nature of beauty and the world.
I have culled a selection of her best work to show here. Keri was still finding her vision as a photographer, and was frustrated by a good part of what she produced. This is natural for someone fated to make good photographs. Keri's best work shows a directness, honesty and trust with her subjects that other -- far more confident and successful -- photographers will never, ever achieve.
Keri, love, you are great.
