Michael Knapstein is a fine-art photographer who has earned international recognition for his insightful and nuanced visual exploration of the American Midwest. A Wisconsin native, he now lives in Middleton, Wisconsin.

Michael’s photographs began attracting national attention while he was still in high school. At the age of 17, he was the youngest photographer to have a solo exhibition at the Steenbock Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters in Madison, Wisconsin. The following year his work was accepted into the permanent collections of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography in Rochester, NY and Nikon House in NYC. While attending college, his work continued to win national recognition and was included in the Photographic Society of America’s prestigious Young Photographer’s Showcase national traveling exhibit for three years in a row.

After graduating from the College of Fine Arts and Communication at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, Knapstein began a 30+ year career in the world of advertising. He held a variety of creative and leadership positions, ultimately heading one of Wisconsin’s largest advertising agencies. These years helped hone his use of design, eye movement tracking, semiotics and storytelling – all skills that he now applies to his photography.

Knapstein sold his agency and retired from the demanding world of advertising in 2010 to return to his first love of photography. Since this reemergence, Michael’s work has been recognized with more than 250 awards in some of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions, including the Royal Photographic Society (England), Prix de la Photographie Paris (France), Grand Prix de la Decouverte (France), the Photography Masters Cup (England), the Lucie International Photography Awards, the New York Center for Photographic Art, Photo L.A., LensCulture (Netherlands), National Geographic and the Pollux Awards (England) which recently named Knapstein their International Landscape Photographer of the Year. In 2016 he was named a finalist in the prestigious Critical Mass international portfolio competition from PhotoLucida (based in Portland, Oregon).

Knapstein’s photographs have been widely published and exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including Aberystwyth, Belfast, East Sussex, London, Oxford and Stafford (all UK), Arles and Paris (France), Barcelona and Malaga (Spain), Buenos Aries (Argentina), Berlin (Germany), Moscow (Russia) and Sydney (Australia).

In the United States, his work has been exhibited in New York (New York), Carmel, Half Moon Bay, Long Beach, Modesto, Oceanside, San Diego and San Francisco (all California), Essex Junction and Middlebury (Vermont), Johnson City (Texas), Albuquerque (New Mexico), Fort Collins (Colorado), Naples (Florida), Portland (Oregon) as well as Madison, Milwaukee, Prairie du Sac, Spring Green, Stevens Point and West Bend (all Wisconsin).