Filmmaker Beth Harrington’s discovery of photographer Frank Matsura’s work in 2002 at the Washington State History Museum marked the beginning of a profound exploration into a lesser-known corner of early 20th-century American photography. While viewing an exhibit that included contemporaries of the renowned Edward S. Curtis, Matsura’s images, described by Harrington as having a "completely different character," immediately captivated her. Matsura, a Japanese immigrant working in Okanogan County, Washington, from 1903 to 1913, developed a unique photographic style characterized by its warmth, intimacy, and deep connection with his subjects. His black-and-white portraits captured a diverse cross-section of life in this frontier region, including both white settlers and Indigenous people from the nearby Colville Indian Reservation. Unlike many photographers of his era who maintained a professional distance, Matsura often integrated himself into the scenes, playfully posing alongside the individuals he documented, a testament to the genuine rapport he built.

Despite leaving behind thousands of photographs, the details of Matsura’s own life remain largely unrecorded, a poignant enigma given his prolific output and the vibrant communities he portrayed. He passed away in Okanogan at the young age of 39 from tuberculosis, a detail that underscores the ephemeral nature of life even as his work has endured for over a century. Yet, the impact of his lens and his gentle presence is still felt today. As Harrington noted, "Frank Matsura is just somebody that you fall in love with," a sentiment echoed by many in the communities he photographed. After moving to the Northwest from Boston in the early 2000s, Harrington dedicated nearly two decades to unraveling Matsura’s enigmatic legacy, culminating in her feature-length documentary, Our Mr. Matsura, completed in 2025. The title itself reflects the deeply personal connection many feel to the photographer, suggesting that each viewer finds their own unique "window" into his world, creating a collective understanding of his character through these individual impressions.

The film’s resonance was powerfully demonstrated last September at a screening held at the restored Omak Theater, where an audience of approximately 300 people gathered. Douglas Woodrow, a lifelong resident of Okanogan, was among them. He shared his childhood memories of seeing Matsura’s photographs regularly featured in the local newspaper, often depicting scenes from the town’s past. As a boy in the late 1950s, Woodrow would bike to the locations of these historical images, marveling at the transformations over time and imagining the grandeur of structures like the Bureau Hotel, a majestic three-story building that burned down in 1924, which he recalled as having lent "a bit of elegance in an otherwise dusty little town."

Woodrow’s reconnection with Matsura’s work intensified years later when he became involved with the Okanogan County Historical Society. During his volunteer work, he discovered a "literal shoebox" filled with previously unprocessed photographs by Matsura. When sequenced, these images chronicled the 1910 construction of the Conconully Dam, an early project by the Bureau of Reclamation on Salmon Creek. This discovery "lit me up," Woodrow recalled, and became the catalyst for his initial efforts to share Matsura’s work with the community, presenting these unearthed photographs to local groups. His dedication extended beyond mere preservation; he journeyed to Matsura’s birthplace in Tokyo with his friend and fellow enthusiast, Tetsuo Kurihara, a Japanese photographer he had met during Kurihara’s own research trip to Okanogan. Back in Washington, Woodrow spearheaded efforts to memorialize Matsura’s legacy, including the installation of an interpretive site near his former studio and the creation of a walking tour featuring mural-sized reproductions of his photographs.

Woodrow emphasized Matsura’s remarkable social mobility, noting that he was "included in just about everything that happened in town, by all the social strata," from tribal members to newly arrived businessmen, miners, and saloon patrons. This inclusivity is vividly reflected in the film, which features interviews with descendants of Matsura’s subjects, such as Randy Lewis, a Wenatchi elder and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. Lewis shared how Matsura’s photographs serve as tangible links to his family’s past. He recounted how a photograph of his great-uncle, Sam George, with his family in a buckboard wagon – the "F-250 of the time" – hung in his family home. George, who lived to be 108, used the photograph to keep his memory sharp, recalling the names and birthdays of everyone in the wagon.

Sam George’s life spanned a period of immense change. Born in 1860, predating the formal establishment of the Colville Indian Reservation in 1872, he witnessed its reduction, the era of allotment, and the influx of prospectors and homesteaders. His family, like many Indigenous families in the region, maintained traditional seasonal fishing practices, including a platform at Celilo Falls, a vital hub for fishing on the Columbia River. This practice was disrupted when the construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957 inundated the site, destroying one of the continent’s richest fishing grounds. Matsura arrived in the Okanogan region during this period of significant cultural flux. Lewis observed that Matsura was capturing a time when "both cultures," Native and settler, were actively evolving, marking "not the death toll of the Indians. It was life going on."

Our Mr. Matsura is as much a portrait of Okanogan County as it is of the photographer himself. Harrington’s film captures the isolated, rugged beauty of a landscape that has remained remarkably similar to the way Matsura would have encountered it. Jean Berney, a rancher and farmer near Conconully and an enrolled member of the Colville Confederated Tribes, described the area as "off the beaten track for a lot of people." Her own ranch was once the site of the Conconully Naturpathy Institute, also known as Casselmann’s Sanitarium, where Dr. Casselmann, a German immigrant, treated tuberculosis patients starting in 1906. It is widely believed that Matsura himself may have been a patient, drawn to the region by its dry climate, a common factor for those seeking recovery from respiratory ailments.

Berney reflects on the enduring mysteries surrounding Matsura’s life, particularly his health: "Did he ever talk to Dr. Casselmann about his condition? How long was he sick? We wonder about Frank and everything that happened a long time ago, and we can’t ask." These unanswered questions highlight the limitations of historical documentation and the profound value of photographic archives in bridging such gaps.

Harrington’s documentary joins a growing body of work dedicated to preserving Matsura’s legacy. This includes the tireless efforts of volunteers at the Okanogan County Historical Society and the academic contributions of Michael Holloman, a tenured art professor at Washington State University. Holloman, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, co-curated a significant exhibition of Matsura’s work at Spokane’s Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in 2023 and published the comprehensive book, Frank S. Matsura: Iconoclast Photographer of the American West, in 2025. Holloman draws a powerful parallel between Matsura’s approach and the needs of the present day, stating, "We need people to be like Frank right now, to engage multiple communities and be able to find life, vibrancy, in a world that is in transformation and change."

The wide release of Our Mr. Matsura was initially planned for PBS’s The American Experience, but federal funding cuts led to the cancellation of the long-running series last summer. Despite this setback, Harrington remains optimistic that the film will find its audience through film festivals, streaming platforms, and special screenings, acknowledging that the path forward will be more challenging. "There’s a lot of worthy things that we can’t put a dollar value to," she observed, emphasizing the cultural and historical impoverishment that results from the loss of such stories.

During the Omak screening, Harrington received heartfelt thanks for "mirroring" the trust and connection Matsura had fostered within the community over a century prior. She, in turn, deflected the praise, stating, "The story is not just about Frank and his charisma and his incredible body of work. It’s about the way people uphold his memory and still talk about him 112 years after his death." This enduring reverence for Matsura, sustained by the very communities he so diligently and empathetically documented, speaks volumes about the lasting power of his photographic vision and his profound human connection.