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Michael Wriston

@michaelwriston.com
2.7K followers 751 following 1.4K posts

Little old nobody in Baltimore. Public record enthusiast and data journalist at @projectsaltbox.com. Sometimes street portrait photographer. Forever enamored by the liminal, the misunderstood, and the unconventional. Signal: mwriston.410

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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/09/2026
We left Bluebird and stood under the gibbous moon as the chimney swifts swarmed in dizzy orbits around the Avenue and our hands found each other's as a man sitting in a Civic parked under an elm tree practiced his didgeridoo.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/09/2026
Gonna share an esoteric, outdated music take but I’d love to hear a Pedro the Lion cover of Lucy Dacus’ ‘Night Shift.’
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 28/09/2026
BLAMMO. buff.ly/pykYN6f
buff.ly
It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers
For the seventeenth year: Welcome to autumn, fuckheads.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/09/2026
Ravens omg
static.klipy.com
Pepe The Frog's Tears of Happiness
ALT: Pepe The Frog's Tears of Happiness
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/09/2026
Ravens wtf
static.klipy.com
Ape Shock
ALT: Ape Shock
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/09/2026
Okay Hibner thank you very cool.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/09/2026
Is this going to be another season of 4th quarter nailbiters for the Ravens??
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
Project Salt Box @projectsaltbox.com · 24/09/2026
Arizona: tune in to KJZZ’s The Show tomorrow during the 9:00 am PT hour. I’ll be discussing GardaWorld’s new construction contract with hosts Lauren Gilger and Mark Brodie.
kjzz.org
KJZZ's The Show
The Show is a stream of curated stories from Phoenix, our region and around the country. With the help of reporters and producers around the region and globe we’ll mix the stories and news to keep you...
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 22/09/2026
I did not set out to be a person who knows about things but unfortunately the times demand people who know about things.
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
Monroe Gallery of Photography @monroegallery.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Freedom oppressed: the journalists caught up in Trump’s ICE crackdown www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Freedom oppressed: the journalists caught up in Trump’s ICE crackdown
Media workers are grappling with increasingly volatile press climate in US, with some detained and even deported
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 20/09/2026
Was not aware you could find Pete Hegseth at Walgreens.
A photo of a box of supplements called Super Beta Prostate Advanced with Saw Palmetto.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 20/09/2026
Sabina-Mattfeldt. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
A silver vintage Citroën DS sedan parked at the curb at night in front of a two-story wood-frame house with black shutters, the whole scene washed in deep red light.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 19/09/2026
Panway-Braddish. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
A rusted, pale blue 1970s Ford Thunderbird parked at the curb in front of a brick rowhouse block at night.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 18/09/2026
Beach House covering Robert Lester Folsom is gonna get you through today.
youtube.com
Beach House - April Suzanne (Official Visualizer)
YouTube video by BeachHouseVideoZone
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 18/09/2026
Midtown-Edmonson. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
A nighttime street corner where a stone church with "COME UNTO ME" lettered over its arched entrance faces a brick building housing Visions Beauty and Barber at 1842 W. Franklin Street. A long exposure turns a passing MTA bus's lights into white and amber streaks across the empty intersection.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 17/09/2026
Pimlico. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
A silver 1980s Corvette parked at night beside a utility pole and a row of trees, with a red streak of taillight trailing across the frame.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 17/09/2026
Just want to say that the Baltimore Book Festival logo always goes hard. I'd love for a standalone poster of those rowhouse books to go in my reading room.
Logo for the annual Baltimore Book Festival, which depicts two rowhouses that look like opened books.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 15/09/2026
Such a pleasure to share my street portrait work with @photochronicle.bsky.social!
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 13/09/2026
Catonsville, MD.
A nighttime photograph of a black 1930s car parked under a large red neon guitar-shaped sign.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 11/09/2026
I have 20 years of experience in military intelligence and this is red flags all the way down.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 10/09/2026
Overlea, MD. 2026.
A weathered two-tone dark green and cream 1970s Dodge Dart coupe parked at night along a curb next to a chain-link fence, lit by a streetlight with a large leafy tree overhead and dark blue night sky in the background.
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
Project Salt Box @projectsaltbox.com · 10/09/2026
Today, we filed a FOIA request with DHS concerning an AI-generated image the @DHSgov X account posted this morning. The image depicts a Transformer facing a South Asian man, over a caption telling "Mr. Singh" to self-deport and get off American roads. We want the prompt.
AI-generated image posted by the DHS account on X, styled as a movie poster. A blue and red robot with the Department of Homeland Security seal on its chest faces a bearded South Asian man in a blue bandana and a monogrammed shirt. A city skyline sits between them at sunset. Text between the two faces reads "SELF-DEPORT OR FIND OUT." Below, in the Transformers logo and typeface, "TRANSFORMERS: AMERICA FOR AMERICANS," and beneath that, "GET OFF OUR ROADS, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE MR. SINGH." A garbled credit block runs along the bottom.First page of a Project Salt Box FOIA request to the DHS Privacy Office, dated September 9, 2026, addressed to the Office of Public Affairs. It seeks records about the use of generative AI to produce public-facing imagery published by DHS, and describes the image posted to the @DHSgov account that morning.
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
Midatlantica @midatlantica.com · 09/09/2026
Too liberal to get Buc-ee's/too conservative to build a working transit network: the Maryland story.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 09/09/2026
If you’d like to tell the board of directors how you feel, the email address is info@marylandstatefair.com
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
Project Salt Box @projectsaltbox.com · 08/09/2026
Thursday, June 11, 2026. Baltimore, Maryland.
wmar2news.com
Governor Wes Moore calls ICE arrest on Baltimore City School campus 'deeply disturbing'
ICE agents conducted an immigration enforcement operation at a Baltimore elementary/middle school Thursday morning, multiple sources tell WMAR-2 News.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 08/09/2026
I AM NOW BEEFING WITH THE STATE FAIR. Apparently "embellishment" means "made up entirely by AI, inspired by a real photo."
Screenshot of an email from Maryland State Fair to Michael Wriston, sent at 2:21 PM. Subject line: Re: A letter regarding the winning "photo" in the Neon category. The message says the writer understands why people are upset when they see a photo they believe was created with AI, but that this is not what happened. It describes the entry as an embellished photo submitted to a "fun class" rather than a traditional photography category, and says the fun classes change each year and are meant to allow more creative and experimental work. It states that the original designer has entered the same photo in other fairs and has been completely open about how he created it, posting exactly what he did to produce the finished image, with no attempt to hide or misrepresent the process. It closes by saying that suggesting the creator was deceptive is not accurate, and that this was a creative project entered in a class specifically intended to be fun and different.A boxed entry from the Maryland State Fair premium book. Header reads H42, Special Contest, Neon Lights, May be embellished. Basis for Judging: composition, print quality, center of interest, strong image, overall presentation, including matting. Prizes: first place $11.00, second place $7.00, third place $6.00, fourth place $4.00.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 08/09/2026
An open letter to the board of Directors of the Maryland State Fair, or, THE ONLY SLOP I WANT TO SEE AT THE STATE FAIR IS IN THE PIG PEN.
michaelwriston.substack.com
An open letter to the Board of Directors of the Maryland State Fair
To the Board of Directors,
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 08/09/2026
Rumor has it that the first place winning photo at the Maryland State Fair in the special "Neon" category is a completely AI-generated image.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 08/09/2026
A powerful letter from the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists to the @baltimoresun.bsky.social for its confounding and ludicrous use of AI imagery instead of human artists. Or better yet, just shutting down out of shame for insulting the talent of generations of journalists and artists.
editorialcartoonists.com
An Open Letter to the Publisher and Editors of the Baltimore Sun from the AAEC - AAEC
On September 4, 2026, The Sun published what can only technically be called an “illustration” it intended its readers to accept as an editorial cartoon.  Whatever the intent, the only message The Sun ...
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 08/09/2026
"In both cases the thing being 'optimized' was throughput for somebody else’s agenda, and a thriving connection between neighbors was not the goal. It was the cost."
michaelwriston.substack.com
On disconnectedness
A highway, a bridge, and a photographer I used to know.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 07/09/2026
After 3,000 frames, I can definitively say that the Fujifilm X100VI is a camera.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 07/09/2026
A selection of my Baltimore street portrait photographs are featured on Photography Chronicle. Check it out and let me know what you think.
photographychronicle.com
Baltimore Street Portraits - Photography Chronicle
Michael Wriston's street portraiture is all about asking strangers to stop, be seen, and briefly belong to each other's day.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 07/09/2026
The power is out in Fells Point. The traffic lights are dark and nobody knows how to drive. A drunk woman walks out onto Broadway and begins directing traffic.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 06/09/2026
Inspired by the Starship Troopers uniforms are you effing insane.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 06/09/2026
Y’all ever get that itch to extricate yourself entirely from the internet and all its stupid cults and foibles and spend the rest of your days meadowmaxxing or nah
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 06/09/2026
I am tired of crapy tomatoes. Essex, MD. 2026.
A nighttime scene of a stack of handmade white signs leaning against an electric pole. They are flanked on all sides by medium-height trees. The signs are cast in red light. The foremost sign reads: "Tired of crapy tomatoes."
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 05/09/2026
ICE’s assault in Frederick is another in a long chain of stark reminders that our collective national apathy to authoritarian tactics was instilled by design, and that the violence we saw in Chicago and Minneapolis did not ever go away.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 04/09/2026
The results might shock you. (I talk like someone from Maryland.) As a former linguist and someone from Maryland, I'm peeved it doesn't have any questions about the "o" phoneme so distinct to the Mid Atlantic. Do you pronounce the "o" in "phone" as "oh" or as "o̴̡̪͚̝͊̌͌ ?" mydialect.us/quiz-standar...
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 03/09/2026
Tell 'em to stay on vacation because as a 90s kid this is the only way I can digest information.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 03/09/2026
@ripest-plum.bsky.social and I researched and wrote a whopper of an article on HHS shopping for expanded migrant children housing space.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 03/09/2026
A few from AFRAM '26. Druid Hill Park. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
A man riding a blue and white dirt bike. Druid Lake is visible in the background.A man in a grey hoodie and red sweat pants straddles a purple and black dirt bike in a grassy field in Druid Hill Park.A shirtless man with a gold chain, reflective glasses, and fanged grills poses with a large smile in front of a yellow background.A quintet of women, each holding a snake, pose for the camera.
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
Project Salt Box @projectsaltbox.com · 01/09/2026
As a volunteer investigative team, we never ask for money. But we back people doing the work on the ground. We report on the detention and enforcement system. Asylee Women Enterprise supports the PEOPLE living under it. They need a permanent home in Baltimore. If you can give, please do.
givebutter.com
A Forever Home for Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE)
We’re asking people who believe in our mission to help us reach our goal and build a permanent home for AWE and the communities we serve.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 30/08/2026
This Turnstile x DJ Rod Lee collab is pure Baltimore joy and is DE-FUCKING-LIGHTFUL.
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
🩸𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕿𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖚🩸 @darktarou.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
A small tribute to the one and only Dolly Parton! 💕
Dolly Parton playing a guitar with roses around her turning from wilted to fully blooming
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Reposted by Michael Wriston
drewtoothpaste @drewtoothpaste.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
next time you want to quote post someone, try throwing a blueberry to a chicken and watching her walk around with it instead
ayam cemani chicken eating a blueberry
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 19/08/2026
Words and photos about Western Maryland (in four parts).
michaelwriston.substack.com
The rolling western mountains (in four parts)
On the lake, the night, the forest, and time.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 12/08/2026
I am folding towels in the mud room when the storm blows the teen in off the lake. He careens first into the dock. Lightning obscures his headlong descent into the murky water. His paddle and board are upended. And then at last he is thrown by a wave against the daisy-riddled grass.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 06/08/2026
Baltimore elemental. Pigtown and Mount Clare. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 30/07/2026
A cartoon giraffe stands holding a skateboard, one hand raised in a wave. It wears a dark long-sleeve shirt, baggy blue pants, and brown boots, with a colorful rainbow swoosh curving around its feet. Rainbow bubble letters across the top read "THE PAST IS DEAD." Smaller text to the left reads, in quotation marks, "The World You Were Born Into No Longer Exists."
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Michael Wriston @michaelwriston.com · 28/07/2026
Meanwhile, Miles Davis and raindrops while doing the dishes.
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