Joseph Johnston

From 1970 to 1976 Joseph Johnston worked with The Free Print Shop, a small underground press in San Francisco where he developed interest in bookbinding. For the next twenty years, he worked as a bookbinder and restorer of works of art on paper. In 1987 on a trip to Guatemala, he met several Tz’utuhil Mayan artists from Guatemala. For the next twenty-five years, he worked closely with the best of these artists, helping them promote their work without compromising their vision.

In 2011 Johnston began studying photography at City College of San Francisco His passion is in documentary photography and photojournalism. He spent a year photographing people on SF Muni, the public bus system in San Francisco.

The project he has been working on almost exclusively since early 2019 is photographing homeless people. “When I walk out of the house, I only need to walk a block to encounter someone living on the street. Perhaps in part because I am a pre-Stonewall gay man, I always had a special place in my heart for outsiders whether they are homeless, mentally challenged, or just unable to fit into the system. We need a new perspective and to start thinking of unhoused people as fellow human beings and friends. I am willing to stop and talk to these people, to listen. One of the unhoused people I photographed said to me ‘Most people see us as drunks, but you talk to us and see our humanity.’ This is what I hope my photographs convey.”

CONTACT:

Email: joseph@artemaya.com
Web Sites:
Maya Art
www.artemaya.com
Photography
www.jwjfoto.com