Michael Joseph

In a rare combination of seat-of-the-pants street shooting and penetrating, narrative-rich portraiture, Michael Joseph has unveiled an entire American youth sub-culture. “Travelers” are nomads traversing the country by hitching rides and hopping freight trains, imperiling themselves in search of adventure, escape, and often, themselves. Photographing on Boston city streets, Joseph happened upon members of this group hidden in plain sight. His stunning, close-up B&W portraits became the part of the series Close Strangers. Continuing to photograph in different cities as he traveled, Joseph began to find some of the same people again, often in cities thousands of miles apart. Soon, he gained their trust and delved deeper, learning their stories and creating his telling current series, Lost and Found. The two projects have much in common, beginning with the youth themselves. But in Lost and Found, Joseph has chosen to take a half-step back, revealing the added unspoken messages born by the kids’ disheveled clothing, accessories like the culture-distinguishing “skank” (neck kerchief) and especially the tattoos that proclaim their passionate stories. Each face and attitude is unique - prideful, defensive, diffident, affable – and each, obstinately memorable. They possess a raw, feral magnetism. Joseph’s frank and intimate portraits of these young spirits, captured as they navigate a strange and often dangerous world, implore some soul-searching about society and family, conformism and freedom, even what we mask and expose of ourselves.

-Elin Spring, Writer, Blogger, Contributor to the Initiative