Joseph Leute Photography

Joe Leute splits his time between his home on the shore of Mirror Lake in central Wisconsin and an apartment in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. Those locations inform his fine art and commercial work in entirely different ways. Joe grew up at his family’s resort on the Wisconsin River and as a child he took off for the woods and the bluffs whenever he could. His landscape work has been compared to that of H.H. Bennett, one of the fathers of landscape photography whose original 1800s studio still stands several miles from Joe’s home. Joe started his career shooting for the Associated Press and that raw, editorial street style is still evident in many of his images. He was trained at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Joe’s work is distinctive for its use of natural light, dramatic locations, and in-the-moment honesty. Travel and tourism brands gravitate to his aesthetic for its authenticity and emotion. His personal projects and portraiture work, all shot on location, have been the subject of gallery exhibits in his home state. His most recent work, an outdoor mural combining historic Bennett images with his own, is installed on a landmark building in his hometown. When he’s not shooting photography, he’s shooting a hockey puck in a no-check league, at least it’s supposed to be no-check.