The text addresses the issue of gold, hard rock, and pebble mining in Southwest Alaska, projects that would ruin a multi-million dollar salmon fishing industry, according to Ketchum, who didn't stop moving during the entire interview.
"The reason for this exhibit is to create a public forum to discuss this issue," Ketchum said while staring at his photograph of a winding river. "I just want a public debate, not an under-the-table deal."
Ketchum's lecture dealt with the relationship between environmental conservation and photography. He thinks the photographer's mission is to produce work that can serve in broad, public debates.
In regards to his latest project in Southwest Alaska, he said some people know that it exists, but few people know what it's really like.
"There has to be some idea what a place looks like before you can generate any empathy for it," Ketchum said.
Ketchum, 58, has been encouraging this sort of empathy for over 30 years.
His first major work was in a social engineering project in the Hudson River Valley. His pictures focused on different ways humans have impacted the land.
"I show things as they could be and things as they really are," he said.
Ketchum didn't want to be confused as a being on the extreme left of issues. Claiming to be a registered Republican from a long line of Republicans, Ketchum said, "I had a wonderful duck dinner last night, and even though I didn't shoot that duck, I would have."
With his medium format, Pentax 645, Ketchum's shot a lot of things from his home in Hollywood all the way to the Arctic.
"You know, a single photograph can cause an impact," he said during his lecture.
He pointed to a photograph taken from the Hudson River Valley project of train tracks and leftover equipment.
He said people saw this image, were effected by it, and now that area is a well-kept park.
His lecture began with a focus on the relationship between photography and conservation, but he ended up giving much attention to the proposed Pebble Mine in the Bristol Bay area.
His lecture did provoke reactions.
"I thought he was pompous," said Katie Matolcsy, a environmental engineer. "I'd like to know how much money he makes and how much he gives back to these issues he's talking about. I'm very put off."
Her friend, Lisa Schuster, a special education teacher, thought that it was good to bring political awareness about the mine.
"But I'm a quilter, I was more interested in the embroidery," she said laughing, referring to Ketchum's photographs replicated in a Chinese embroidered craft.
Ketchum said photography was an extraordinary vehicle; it gives presence to a place. He referred to a photo of a lone man in the Yosemite wilderness, saying that it reflected the public consciousness of man's place in nature.
"Seeing the big picture and also the abstract entity are one and the same," he said. "Photography shows the gradual change of man's place in nature."
