Mike Belleme is a self-taught, Appalachian-born documentary photographer living in Asheville, North Carolina. Belleme’s work intimately examines themes of connection and community and the physical, mental, and social constructs that cultivate and inhibit connection. At the heart of Belleme’s work is a considered approach to contemporary issues that help us explore the seen and unseen forces that dictate how we perceive each other and the world around us. Belleme’s assignment work, primarily focused in the rural Southeastern, United States, can be seen in such publications as The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Time, The Guardian, National Geographic, Elle, Monocle, The Atlantic, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Entrepreneur, Inc., NPR, CNN, MSNBC, The Marshall Project, ProPublica, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Esquire, Outside, Fortune, Stern, The Fader and many more. Non editorial clients include Intell, Stetson, Airbnb, Google and CitiBank. 

His first book, Mise-en-Scène is a collaboration with urbanist Chris Reed, exploring the implications of design at a variety of scales for urban life and ecology. Belleme focuses on community outreach through one on one mentorship of young photographers. He also serves on the board of a local arts non-profit, Maker’s Circle and is a co-founder of the photography communities, Six Feet Photography, a community formed to share work and build community during the pandemic, and Kinship Photography, a group designed to create community and resources for lens based artists using their craft to deepen their relationships with the natural world. 

Belleme has been recognized in multiple years by Pictures of the Year International as well as American Photography, Indie Book Awards, ASME Photography and Illustration Awards and Urbanautica Institute and has exhibited his work in several solo exhibitions in North Carolina and Virginia as well as group exhibitions and lectures all over the US.

Mike Belleme
Asheville, NC
828 606 9796
mikebelleme@gmail.com