Authors Posts by Timothy Lunn

Timothy Lunn

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Timothy Lunn is a Multimedia Journalist based in London. He is working on a series of interviews with leading street photographers for Streethunters.

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Craig Reilly - Street Photography interview - 1

NOTE: This is a Guest Blog post written by Timothy Lunn exclusively for www.streethunters.net.


Craig Reilly from Street Photography International shares his background in street photography and offers advice for those struggling to compose a street shot.

Sombreness and Serenity

Three years ago, Craig Reilly was walking through Peckham Rye, London.

Before he co-founded Street Photography International, before was published in TimeOut, and before became an Olympus Ambassador, he was just an amateur photographer, hopping jobs, moving flats and growing desperately tired of his (very) occasional landscape photography.

Something had to change.

Out of the mist reared a tree. It spread its near-empty branches through the empty park, withered and stark. Beneath it cycled a man, barely visible beneath the branches.

Craig Reilly - Street Photography interview - 5

Craig clicked the shutter.

This photo marked the start of his career in street photography, the first photograph that combined a human form with an urban landscape – and it was a fine example at that.

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Richard Bram - street photography interview

NOTE: This is a Guest Blog post written by Timothy Lunn exclusively for www.streethunters.net.


iN-PUBLiC member Richard Bram speaks to StreetHunters about the importance of gesture in street photography.

Winter Landscapes

A view of the London river emerges from the dull cloud of a December morning. Richard gestures out along the estuary, pointing toward the distant buildings of an occasional project.

When asked about the secret to his own street photography, he points to another artist: one to whom winter landscapes were also dear, one to whom a stoop of the leg or a wave of the hand was as important as a shaft of sunlight or a pop of vibrant colour.

But Richard doesn’t point to a photographer. He doesn’t point to the latest Magnum nominee or to the old masters of street photography.

“Hunters in the Snow,” Pieter Brueghel the Elder
“Hunters in the Snow,” Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Instead, he points to an old master of the painterly kind, a Flemish painter from the city of Antwerp working back in the 1500s.

That artist was Pieter Brueghel.

Of Brueghel, Richard says:

‘You know, you have to study the history of art. One of my favourite painters of all time is Breughel. A lot of his best paintings, like “The Road to Calvary” or “The Fall of Icarus” or some of his winter scenes, are filled with people.’

From the hunters bent forward, leaning out of the foreground, to the flattened peasant stretched across the ice in the mid-ground, his work is filled with actions, bodies, gestures.

“Road to Calvary”, Pieter Brueghel the Elder
“Road to Calvary”, Pieter Brueghel the Elder

For Richard then, the key problem in photography becomes not one concerning hard light or soft light, monochrome or colour, Canon or Fuji, but rather:

‘How much action can you put on one canvas before it falls apart? There are hundreds of things going on in some of Brueghel’s paintings – and yet they’re all gorgeous.’

To understand this problem further, we have to go back to the career of a failing businessman; one just starting his hand at photography in the mid-1980s, hoping for a change of luck.

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Dmitry Stepanenko

NOTE: This is a Guest Blog post written by Timothy Lunn exclusively for www.streethunters.net.


‘A Window Covered with Raindrops’

Saul Leiter once said of his photography:

‘A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.’

Dmitry Stepanenko

This fascination with windows – and by extension – reflections, is widely recognised as a hallmark of his work. Whether bending light or breaking it, reflections allowed Leiter to re-imagine his native New York as an abstract painting, conjuring up an artist’s vision of colour and shape.

Although he passed away in 2013, many present-day street photographers have followed his lead, using reflections to develop their own sense of the surreal. One contemporary inspired by Leiter’s work is Dmitry Stepanenko, a leading London street photographer, organiser of the London Street Photography Festival and Judge of the Miami Street Photography festival.

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Photos by London based Street Photographer Becky Frances

NOTE: This is a Guest Blog post written by Timothy Lunn exclusively for www.streethunters.net.


‘Like Chaplin Does’

Silhouettes, shadows and solitary figures traipsing through winter rain have long been staples of street photography.

But they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.

Street Photographers as diverse as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliot Erwitt and Tavepong Pratoomwong have long championed the ‘brighter side’ to life, incorporating humour, comedy and a sense of the absurd into their work.

Erwitt in particular held humour in high regard, claiming:

“Making people laugh is one of the highest achievements you can have. And when you can make them laugh and cry, alternately, like Chaplin does, now that’s the highest of all possible achievements. I don’t know that I aim for it, but I recognize it as the supreme goal.”

But this goal of making people laugh ‘Like Chaplin does’ is harder than it appears.

Many of us struggle to express humour through our photography, resorting instead to the tried and tested trends of existential despair and postmodern misery.

With such cheery thoughts in mind, Street Hunters turned to one of London’s leading street photographers – Becky Frances – for some helpful tips and advice.

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Behind bars by Rupert Vandervell

NOTE: This is a Guest Blog post written by Timothy Lunn exclusively for www.streethunters.net.


Shapes and Forms

‘I’m not necessarily interested in the main subject at all … all they’re doing is adding another shape or form.’

What Rupert describes as shapes and forms are in fact two builders fetching their tools from a van outside the cafe.

‘I’m more interested in the light coming through that bench in the street and the shadows it creates.’

By the end of the interview, Rupert’s not only reduced the builders to their shadows and the bench to its highlights. He’s reduced the entire daylight shooting hours from 9 to 11. And for that matter, he’s reduced the entire calendar year from mid-April through to late June. As if by summary, he raises his hand and exclaims:

‘If the light’s bad, I’ll go home.’

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Nicholas Gooden Interview for Street Hunters by Timothy Lunn

NOTE: This is a Guest Blog post written by Timothy Lunn exclusively for www.streethunters.net.


Introduction

You’ve just taken a fantastic photograph.

Great composition. Dramatic lighting. Bold tones.

But how do you share it?

We’ve all made mistakes with social media. Whether it was chasing a trend, posting ‘like for like’ or plastering a photo with more hashtags than an Instagram sunset, it’s not easy to draw the line between self-promotion and self-importance!

So how do we share a photograph responsibly?

To help answer this question, StreetHunters talked to a leading London Street Photographer and Director of Marketing, Nicholas Goodden.