Michael Sweet

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 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, which earned him two of Canada's highest civilian honors for service to education, A Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal. Sweet was also a national finalist for a 2011 Governor General's Awards for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History and has been added to the Wall of Fame at the National Teachers Hall of Fame in the United States. As of 2019, Sweet was listed on the faculty at the Robert Louis Stevenson School, a private therapeutic day school in Manhattan, New York.

Photography and writing

Sweet has made grainy black-and-white, oddly-framed, gritty, low-fi, close-up street photography. He has used cheap cameras, including disposable and instant cameras, and the Ricoh GR Digital IV. He is the author of two street photography monographs, The Human Fragment, and Michael Sweet's Coney Island. His photography often consists of "human fragments"—partial views of people on the street.

Sweet's photography has won both portfolio and spotlight prizes in Black and White Magazine, and 2nd prize in Life Framer's "Black & White" award in 2024. He has written for the Evergreen Review, Canadian Teacher Magazine, Reed Magazine, English Journal, Photo Life Magazine, and Digital Camera magazine in the UK. He was a regular blogger for The Huffington Post photography section from 2014 until early 2017.

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. He now contributes regularly to F-Stop Magazine. Sweet has also been a regular contributor to Canadian Teacher Magazine since 2008.

Personal life

Sweet is married to poet Matthew Hittinger.

Publications

• The Human Fragment. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Arts, 2013. Second edition, 2017. ISBN 978-1936767243. With a foreword by Michael Musto.
• Michael Sweet's Coney Island. Brooklyn, New York: Brooklyn Arts, 2015. ISBN 978-1936767403.
• Disposable Camera. Purple Poetry, 2016. ISBN 978-0987756466.

• The Street Photography Bible: an Opinionated Little Guide to Street Photography. Self-published, 2014. ISBN 978-1499374438.