Sweet was born and raised on his family's horse farm in Martock, Nova Scotia. He taught in public schools in Montreal, Quebec, from 2003 to 2015 and founded Learning for a Cause,^[2][3] which earned him two of Canada's highest civilian honors for service to education, A Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence^[4] and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal.^[5] Sweet was also a national finalist for a 2011 Governor General's Awards for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History^[6] and has been added to the Wall of Fame at the National Teachers Hall of Fame in the United States.^[7] As of 2019, Sweet was listed on the faculty at the Robert Louis Stevenson School, a private therapeutic day school in Manhattan, New York.^[8]

Sweet has made grainy black-and-white,^[9] oddly-framed, gritty,^[10] low-fi,^[11] close-up street photography. He has used cheap cameras, including disposable and instant cameras,^[12][13] and the Ricoh GR Digital IV. He is the author of two street photography monographs, The Human Fragment,^[14][15] and Michael Sweet's Coney Island.^[16] Sweet's Coney Island work earned him a "passing of the torch" in an endorsement from the Coney Island photographer Harold Feinstein.^[17] His photography often consists of "human fragments"—partial views of people on the street.^[18][19]

Sweet's photography has won both a portfolio and spotlight prize in Black and White Magazine,^[20] a 2020 LifeFramer Award,^[21] and a Popular Photography 2013 prize.^{[citation needed]} Sweet has written for the Evergreen Review,^[22] Canadian Teacher Magazine,^[23] Reed Magazine,^[24] English Journal,^[25] Photo Life Magazine^[26] and others. He was a regular blogger for The Huffington Post photography section from 2014 until early 2017.^[27]

In 2018, Sweet appeared in Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable, a feature-length documentary film on the life of photographer Garry Winogrand produced by Sasha Waters Freyer. In 2021, Sweet appeared in the film, Fill The Frame, a documentary about street photography in New York City.

Sweet wrote for Canada's Photo Life magazine from 2015 until its closure in 2021.^[28] He now contributes regularly to the websites F-Stop Magazine and FStoppers.com.^[29][30] Sweet has also been a regular contributor to Canadian Teacher Magazine since 2008.^[31]

Sweet is married to poet Matthew Hittinger.^[32]

Books of work by Sweet edit

• The Human Fragment. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Arts, 2013. Second edition, 2017. ISBN 978-1936767243. With a foreword by Michael Musto.
• Michael Sweet's Coney Island. Brooklyn, New York: Brooklyn Arts, 2015. ISBN 978-1936767403.
• Disposable Camera. Purple Poetry, 2016. ISBN 978-0987756466.

Booklets of work by Sweet edit

• The Street Photography Bible: an Opinionated Little Guide to Street Photography. Self-published, 2014. ISBN 978-1499374438.

• Official website