Thatcher Keats: Confidence Games

Are these photos set up? Directed? Snapshots? What games must a photographer play to gain access? By any means available--including deception--Keats cajoles, soothes and manipulates his subjects into surrendering to the camera. Kids, pets, families, lovers and stoners all reveal themselves in work that can hover between candid snapshot and formal portrait. The means may include trickery and confidence games; the aim is truth. With an essay by Rick Moody.