Michael Magers

It’s rare that an image captures the opaque poetry of everyday life. Yet that poetry recurs in Michael Magers’s photography. His rare eye for unusual moments and fleeting connections—or lack thereof—has earned him an international reputation as a photographer, journalist, and artist. Magers’s photos have appeared in prominent publications including TIME, The California Sunday Magazine, Vogue Italia, and Huck. In both his commissioned and personal work—which has taken him to Japan, Cuba, Haiti, and many other countries—Magers explores the intimacy of the world around him, capturing subtle moments of solitude even amid the constellation of activity on city streets. These pictures not only celebrate the essence of everyday life, but also the magic of each moment. Every one of the grainy, black-and-white photographs in his first monograph carries a secret to be discovered and explored.

With contributions from acclaimed Cuban musician Daymé Arocena, photographer Larry Fink, celebrated Japanese Tattoo Artist Horiren 1st, award-winning authors Matt Goulding and Mitch Moxley, and musician, poet and visual artist Matthew Shultz.

MICHAEL MAGERS (*1976, Dallas, Texas) lives in New York and works as a photographer and journalist worldwide. His works are published in prominent international magazines and newspapers. In cooperation with the highly acclaimed team at Roads & Kingdoms, he served as lead-photographer on a prize-winning series of travel books published by Harper Collins/Anthony Bourdain. His work documenting craftsmanship in Japan was a 2016 Critical Mass Finalist and in 2019, he was shortlisted for the Hariban Award.