Canadian photographer, writer, and educator
Michael Ernest Sweet (born 1979) is a Canadian photographer, writer, and educator. He is the author of two books of street photography, The Human Fragment[1] and Michael Sweet's Coney Island.
Teaching
Sweet was born and raised on his family's horse farm in Martock, Nova Scotia. He taught in public schools in Montreal, Quebec, from 2003 to 2015 and founded Learning for a Cause,[2][3] which earned him two of Canada's highest civilian honors for service to education, A Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence[4] and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal.[5] Sweet was also a national finalist for a 2011 Governor General's Awards for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History[6] and has been added to the Wall of Fame at the National Teachers Hall of Fame in the United States.[7] As of 2019, Sweet was listed on the faculty at the Robert Louis Stevenson School, a private therapeutic day school in Manhattan, New York.[8]
Photography and writing
Sweet is known for his oddly-framed, gritty,[9] low-fi,[10] close-up street photography, as well as for his use of cheap cameras, including disposable and instant cameras.[11][12] He is especially known for his use of the Ricoh GR Digital IV camera. Sweet is the author of two street photography monographs, The Human Fragment,[13] which earned him praise from photographers Jay Maisel and Roger Ballen,[14] and Michael Sweet's Coney Island, which received praise from photographer Martin Parr.[15] Sweet's grainy close-up black and white shots of Coney Island, earned him a "passing of the torch" in an endorsement from the Coney Island photographer Harold Feinstein,[16] who spent most of his life documenting the famous urban beach. His photography often consists of "human fragments"—partial views of people on the street.[17][18] His works are mainly presented in black and white, with a grainy texture.[19]
Sweet's photography has won both a portfolio and spotlight prize in Black and White Magazine,[20] a 2020 LifeFramer Award,[21] and a Popular Photography 2013 prize.[citation needed] Sweet has written for the Evergreen Review,[22] Canadian Teacher Magazine,[23] Reed Magazine,[24] English Journal,[25] Photo Life Magazine[26] and others. He was a regular blogger for The Huffington Post photography section from 2014 until early 2017.[27]
In 2018, Sweet appeared in Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable, a feature-length documentary film on the life of photographer Garry Winogrand produced by Sasha Waters Freyer. In 2021, Sweet appeared in the film, Fill The Frame, a documentary about street photography in New York City.
Sweet wrote for Canada's Photo Life magazine from 2015 until its closure in 2021.[28] He now contributes regularly to the websites F-Stop Magazine and FStoppers.com.[29][30] Sweet has also been a regular contributor to Canadian Teacher Magazine since 2008.[31]
Personal life
Sweet is married to poet Matthew Hittinger.[32]
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Canadian Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence
