Wild West of the East, a street portrait series by photographer Michael Joseph, celebrates the LGBTQ+ community of Provincetown, Massachusetts. For Joseph, the town is a found “Neverland” where social conventions drop away—both residents and visitors can embrace their most authentic selves, from artists and performers to eccentrics and washashores. Set on the tip of Cape Cod and surrounded by water on three sides, Provincetown has long been a site of transformation and free thinking. The site of the Mayflower landing, it evolved from a Nauset settlement to a Portuguese fishing village to an artist colony. Today, on Commercial Street, drag queens bark, parades crawl, leather men strut, and creatively dressed (or barely dressed at all) people are in transit. Joseph approaches strangers on the street, engaging them in spontaneous conversations and shooting with a vintage 1971 Polaroid Big Shot camera, a unique analog format that forces direct, up-close encounters with his subjects. His medium-format portraits of locals, visitors, artists, and celebrities are raw and intimate. While each subject’s individuality comes through in these images, taken together Joseph’s photographs tell the story of this unique New England community.
Norman Mailer described Provincetown to Jacqueline Kennedy in 1960 as “the Wild West of the East”—a place where everyone is absolutely equal. Joseph’s eye reveals the intoxicating joy and celebration of queer culture that is created by the people who inhabit this magical town.