A photo blog by Joe Heath

Well.. here it is…

Actually, I think it’s the first cover that both the editor and myself agreed on from the start. Yay.

S'Ok, I'll look after you now..

Of course the “Hello” colour scheme isn’t mine. But what would the life of a starving artist be without editorial slavery…

About a month ago I started work on a project for a company called AQ-Services. They are running a loyalty program in the Asia Pacific region for Adidas. Its called “The Ambassadors Club” and is aimed at young people.

For the project they wanted shots of Adidas staff, from shop staff to directors, in “energetic & hip” poses to go on the marketing literature, in welcome packs, and possible on the website. Enter me..

I’ve now done three shoots, two in Adidas shops in KL, one at a management conference. I may be doing some more as well.

I’m currently using a new idea for a business model: Pay What You Think It’s Worth (PWYT).

In PWYT we just have the agreement that any expense will be covered (as long as I agree them first),then after we’ve finished the company pays me what it wants to.

“Whoa! Are you stupid?”, I hear you scream. Well maybe not. This model relies on my skills to generate revenue. Not sales, not negotiation, just recognition of the end result.

Sure at the beginning I don’t get much money. But I do get work, and once I start to become wanted then the amounts will grow to ensure my continued interest.

Remember, in this model I choose who I want to work with. I may base that on how much they previously paid me, or just on the interest I have in the project.

Rip me off and I might refuse to work with you for any amount. Have an interesting project or a good cause and I might be happy on just expenses.

Plus I get the satisfaction of procurement & finance departments just collapsing in a heap of jelly when it says “As you decide” on the invoice… Does Not Compute..

Anyway here’s a few of the images so far – I’ll post links to real material later. I’ll also cover what happens with the PWYT model over the next few months.

Here’s a selection of images I’ve supplied to them:

World Cup (Pavillion, KL)

The Orginal Team (Pavillion, KL)

AsiaPac Director

Retail Director (Malaysia)

I’ve decided to change the look of the blog. Something less brazen, I thought.

The theme I’m using now for Wordpress is Piano Black

Let me know what you think.

Ok, so I’ve been lazy and haven’t updated this in a while. I had an excuse, but I just forgot it.

First update is for Bonda. I’ve done two more covers:

March

The theme was “Education”, so I got a load of my old university books out, stole some kids, and sat down in the cafe taking pictures of them reading and falling asleep.

My favourite of the day was this one:

The Next Feynman

Lighting was simple: speedlight in a shoot through umbrella to camera left (looking down), and then balanced against the ambient.

But the editor settled on a different one:

March Cover

Lighting was a speedlight in a shoot through umbrella to camera right and a pare speed light to camera left-rear.

April:

The theme for this was “Healthy Eating”, so I bought a few apples, stole a colleague’s kid, and…

April Cover

I used my living room to take this shot. There’s a nice corner of two white walls, a speedlight in a shoot through umbrella to the camera right, and a bare speedlight behind Ethan which is pointing at the wall.

I’m also currently working on the June issue (there was no May issue) for the theme of travel… keep an eye on my flickr stream to see it day by day.

I’ll do the other updates in seperate posts…

Read more

A bit of news. This has been on the cards for a while, but now I’m actually starting.

I’ve been asked to be the cover photographer for a magazine called Bonda. I’ve, of course, accepted. How could I not with the massive salary package they were offering me.

Bonda is the magazine for a non-profit organisation called Ibu (‘mother’ in Bahasa Malayu). This is a family resource group based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You can read about them on their website.

I’m working on my first cover, for the February issue, at the moment. I’ll post images as I go along.

There’s a prize of a free portrait for the person who guesses the immense salary they have lured me in with (family members and pets are excluded from entering this competition).

I went for a wander around the trail at the TDDI park yesterday. Troy took me down there to see the opportunities for getting some mountain bike shots. Unfortunately there wasn’t a race on, but I’ll be back when there is.

Will have to make do with this snap of Troy:

(From my old site, originally written July 2009)

Here’s how I take most of my lightning images. My technique is constantly evolving so this represents it at the time I am writing this (July 2009).

My lightning photos can be found on flickr

Introduction

Lightning photography is very much like flash photography. If you understand one then you can very easily transfer that knowledge to the other. I find lightning photography a great way to introduce flash photography to students, and have taught a seminar using this method. Lightning photography can be considered (as can flash photography) as two separate exposures.

• The first is a long, dim exposure that captures the sky and background
• The second is a small duration, bright exposure that captures the lightning itself

By always remembering this it can be quite easy to set up your camera to capture lightning.

Equipment

Here’s a run down on the equipment I use:

• Nikon D70s DSLR
• Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5
• Nikon ML-L3 wireless remote
• Tripod

Although I have recently acquired a D300 I have used the D70s for all my previous images. It’s perfectly good enough for this kind of photography.

Location

Location is key. What you need is somewhere with a good unobstructed view of the horizon and preferably somewhere high up (for further viewing range. These two factors add up to serious danger in storm, so I’d also recommend making sure you are somewhere safe as well. I am lucky. I live on the 28th floor of a condo which overlooks a big chunk of the Klang Valley in Malaysia. It’s the tallest thing around and there are 6 floors above me and a lightning conductor so I feel pretty safe (see here for how close the lightning gets). I have a large balcony (not that I’m bragging) that covers 180 degrees. This is pretty much ideal for the lightning. In addition to a location to shoot from, you also need a location where there is actually going to be lightning. This helps.

Technique

Ok, so we’ve got a good storm approaching what do we do? First, watch the storm. What’s it doing? How frequent is the lightning? How bright is it? Where’s it striking? Where’s the storm moving to?

Back to our camera, we need to set it up on the tripod facing the area where we think the lightning will appear. I’m typically zoomed out at 25-18mm here, I want as wide an angle as possible to get a many chances to capture an image as possible.

Camera settings on Manual. RAW, ISO200 (or as low as it will go).

Focus on infinity. Set focus to manual and focus to the middle of the infinity symbol (check with your lens that this is the correct place)

Aperture. To set the aperture we need to guess. Look at the lightning, that’s what we’re exposing with the aperture. Nearby lightning might be f/8 or even f/11, far off lightning will go down to f/3.5 (or lower)

Compose your image. Ignore the lightning, just compose for the background.

Meter the background. We have everything else set – just use the built in meter to set the shutter speed. I normally over-expose by a stop of two to get a nice coloured sky (this will depend on your local surroundings)

The principle here is to set the aperture to record the lightning and then be able to take as long an exposure as possible. I’m typically at 4-8s due to city lights. If you are in the country then you might be able to have very long exposures (and that means multiple strikes)

Start shooting. Use the remote and keep shooting. Keep shooting and keep shooting.

Tips

Some tips I’ve learnt along the way:

• Keep your battery full and memory card empty, just in case
• Take a few test shots to make sure your exposure is ok
• Don’t stop until you get a flash of lightning, quickly check, then get back to shooting
• RAW helps with a bit extra exposure control and white balance in post processing
• A chair and some beers (even a mate to help you drink them) make the time more enjoyable

So that’s about it, no great secrets. My next challenge is daytime lightning photography!

Update

As of December 2009 I’m now using my Nikon D300. I use it with the Phottix Cleon remote trigger and mostly with the 18-200 DX VR lens (with all VR turned off), although I have got good results with the 35mm f/1.8 lens. The technique is the same, just my equipment has grown more expensive.

First good storm of the season turned up today. Got quite a few shots and came out with the these two. The first is a really nice single strike – you can see the branching from initial leader. The second is two sets of multiple strikes superimposed – although there are 5 strikes it was only 2 images originally.

Both of these were taken using my normal technique.

I took 30 minutes out on Diwali to get some photos of the family who were present at Mummy & Papa’s house in Allahabad. It was a bit rushed and had the same lighting setup for every shot, so some worked and others didn’t.

Lessons learned from this session were:

• Take more photos
• Check the lights fire
• Check your fill lights – maybe a second light to the left in an umbrella would have been good

Anyway, here’s the photos that worked – enjoy.

All photo’s were taken using my D300 with my new 35mm lens, using two SB600 for lighting, one through an umbrella to the right, and the other at back.