10 Questions with Bellamy Hunt
1. What drew you to Street Photography?
1. I am not really sure that I would actually call myself a street photographer, more a photographer who happens to be on the street. I think I fell into the concept of street photography through the environment that I inhabit. As I live in Tokyo there is pretty much only streets for as far as you can go here.
2. Do you do any creative or other types of photography?
2. I have been known to do panoramic scenes, landscape, night and ‘artist experimental’ photography. I have been taking pictures now for about 20 years, so I have pretty much been through most of the styles that I have wanted to try out. But what I do now is where I feel most comfortable.
3. How did you start getting your name and pictures out there?
3. I guess I would have to say Flickr, although it is not all that good a tool to do that unless you play the Flickr game. Having my own website changed a lot of things for me, it got me noticed. But contacting other influential bloggers and pushing my work on them was the biggest thing, that is how I got the Leica Blog entry.
4.How much time to you spend shooting pictures versus marketing?
4. I spend much more time taking than marketing. The most marketing I do is actually for my business, which is selling fine cameras. But I can do that on the move. Twitter is a brilliant marketing tool.
5. How do you work ethics into Street Photography? What won’t you shoot?
5. That is a very good question. Where do you draw the line? And what is the line between objectivity and influencing a moment? I struggle with this a lot. I will not cause people obvious distress through my presence with a camera, but I will not shy away from taking pictures of situations that could be seen as provocative. AS long as I am not in the way or the cause of the distress then I am happy.
6. Do you use Canon, Nikon, Lieca, or what type of camera and computer do
you use?
6. I use Leica film cameras, almost exclusively. Though I have been trying out Leica digital cameras recently. There is no substitute for the lenses, they are the best. I have had Nikon, Canon and pretty much most of the major makers cameras in the past, but Leica is where I am the most productive. I use a Macbook Pro just because it is convenient. I don’t really care about the computer aspect, it is just a tool.
7. Have you ever been confronted by police or unhappy people? If so what
happened?
7. Yes I have, on several occasions. Usually it is just a case of an apology or a misunderstanding. I have never deleted an image (as I use film) and I would refue to do so. People in Tokyo are pretty easy going about this stuff, I can get away with a lot.
8. Do you use Flickrr, Google +, 500PX or other photo sights?
8. I use Flickr, Google+, Twitter and tumblr, on top of my own site.
9. Do you watermark or logo your pictures you put up on the web?
9. I don’t watermark my images, as most of my images are not commercially viable. I only upload low rez images of my work though. A lot of my stuff is done on film, so the quality images never get shown online.
10. What makes a Good Street Photo different from a Snapshot on the
street?
10. That is a tough question. A good street picture depicts a scene, a sense of comedy or some kind of emotion. Obviously composition is important too, you cannot just take a snapshot, you have to think about what is in the frame and how it affects the outcome of the image. There are a lot of things to think about when composing a picture. Taking your time and creating images that work in sequence is important.
Special thanks to Bellamy, and keep up with him here!
My contact links are as follows
Thanks
Bellamy
