Introduction
Rare is it that we have the time, energy, inspiration and courage to look back on our life to measure its meaning. The Covid Pandemic was a unique opportunity for us all to do just that. But for artists and creatives, who are internally wired to obsessively interpret their world and their place in it, the elders of this group suddenly found themselves looking back on the entirety of their life’s work with a nagging compulsion to make sense of it all. Which is precisely what my dear cousin, Boston photographer Joshua Touster, has done in this extraordinarily sprawling website you are about to explore.
There is a depth in our relationship that made me an easy target to tee up Josh’s website. Josh and I have been close our entire lives, nourishing and tolerating each other’s alternating whims both social and artistic, ever since we were kids growing up in Manhattan.
We discovered photography almost simultaneously in our mid-teens, inspired in no small measure by my uncle and Josh’s dad, Irwin Touster, who was the artist in the family. Irwin would instigate lengthy expeditions around New York City solely for us to take photographs. We developed themes in our work like Josh’s series on trapped plants or my series on captive animals at the Central Park Zoo. But the massive social change of the late 60’s was about to unfold and we set out to capture it all, immersing ourselves in the rapidly evolving times and reveling in every ’Decisive Moment’.
Josh ultimately stuck with still photography. I preferred the team aspect of shooting moving pictures as if I were the lead guitarist in one of our favorite bands. We still joke about my tendency to shoot moving pictures with a still photographer head and his tendency to shoot stills with a filmmaker head. Either way, the story is the thing.
There are entire worlds to be found in Josh’s singular images. But I find his most engaging and compelling works are his photo essays, where story and sequence reveal the essence of his unique vision. Beneath the headers and drop-down menus of this website you will find a rich and extraordinary archive of personal and professional work, painstakingly curated and annotated by the artist himself. Rummage around the galleries for topics that strike your fancy. If you share our “Baby Boomer” heritage, you might head directly to “Music”, “Sports” or “Social Justice”. If you are linearly inclined, start with “Ancient History” and work your way through the story told in his photography. To fully appreciate the impact of Josh’s work, I strongly urge you to view this website on as large a screen as possible rather than on the minuscule screen on the phone in your pocket.
However you proceed, prepare yourself for a deeply engrossing journey through Joshua Touster’s photographic career. In the end I think you will find he has manifested in this single website something that most of us have considered but dared not attempt in any era, Pandemic or otherwise; the process of laying out our life’s work and examining our individual place in the universe, in the world, and within ourselves.
I encourage you to take a deep dive into Josh’s website. You are in for a remarkable photographic feast.
-Dan Friedman 2022