Michael Kolster is a photographer, Professor of Art at Bowdoin College, and Guggenheim Fellow. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Huntington Library, Center for Creative Photography, George Eastman Museum, High Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography, American University of Paris, Princeton University Art Museum, Brown University's Bell Gallery, Smith College Museum of Art, and Williams College Museum of Art, among others. 

He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, the American University of Paris, Schroeder Romero and Shredder Gallery in New York City, SRO Gallery at Texas Tech University, Page Bond Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, and the University of New England, among others.

Kolster holds a BA in American Studies at Williams College, an MFA at the Massachusetts College of Art, and a certificate from the full-time Documentary Photography program at the International Center of Photography in New York City.

His books include Mongrels of Our Making (2025), Paris Park Photographs (2022), L.A. River (2019) and Take Me To The River (2016), all published by George F. Thompson Publishing.

Kolster lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Christy Shake, and his son, Calvin.