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Matinee: 'Michael Foster, Photographer'
20 April 2024
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 549th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Michael Foster, Photographer.
In this three-minute video from Andrew Leggett (appropriately rendered in black and white), we meet Michael Foster, who admittedly does not make his living from photography. Still, he's a photographer.
How can you tell?
The minute he confessed to making just one or two images a year that he really likes, we knew he was the real deal.
Dissatisfaction is not the goal, it's the driving force that educates the mind to acquires the skills to improve. It turns failures into lessons.
To be dissatisfied with your images, however, you have to love what you're doing. Or why would you persist?
When making photographs is your passion, as Foster says it is for him, you don't need to make a living at it to make a place for it in your life. In his case, he makes tintype portraits that tell stories that read like miniature biographies.
There are a few examples that flash up on the screen during this video that you could look at for hours instead of a couple of seconds. He posts a few of them on his site.
But when it comes to stories, you have to take an extra moment to read his journal entry titled My Last Days With Harpo. The accompanying photos aren't tintypes (they look like phone photos) but they illustrate a story we found quite moving.
"To be honest," he says, "I don't get to shoot as much as I want to."
Spoken like someone who really loves photography.