Snapshots: John Heng
John Heng is certainly no stranger to the limelight. The winner of the Canon-TNP Young Photographer of the Year award in 2007, he's also giving back to the community by being a speaker for Circa2007, a youth outreach program. The man's got heart. Currently based in the US, Heng shares with CNET Asia a series of portraitures that chronicles the innocence of youth and the beauty it holds.
The images you see from this feature have been reproduced with permission from
John Heng. If you wish to be featured in our interviews or know any photo buffs who may be interested, write to us, and we'll get back to you.
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Name:
John Heng
Type of photographer:
Professional
Equipment:
Canon 20D (50mm, 85mm, 10-22, 17-40, 70-200), Hasselblad 500CM, Hasselblad SWC.
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About John Heng:
My first picture was a panning shot of an Ultralight aircraft taking off from a runway. My friend, Chris Yap, had mounted a Canon film body and a 100-400mm lens on it, and though I had no prior knowledge except an itchy finger, I was looking through it and tracking it when I took a shot.
The result was a pretty awesome panning shot of the plane. That spurred me on some. But as I was only 18, I did not have enough money to buy myself photography equipment. That was until I went to America for the first time and my mum bought me a point-and-shoot Minolta film camera. The result was 45 rolls of film and no money to develop them.
I got a job soon after and saved up enough for a second-hand Canon G2 and the rest was history. I started treating photography more seriously after helping out at a tsunami relief operation, documenting and helping to sail a media run of a historical sailing vessel that was transporting food and medical supplies to the north of Aceh and the West Coast of Sumatra.
The owners happened to be a professional photographer and a designer, both formerly based in Europe. They liked what I was doing and were giving me a lot of critique and feedback. Later on, I bought a dSLR to shoot my first yacht race in 2006 and have since been commissioned to cover a few more of them.
I am currently working on a freelance basis with the Business Times (a financial newspaper based in Singapore), and as a photography consultant for UNICEF for its various campaigns.
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Issac one
This is Issac, my boss' son, who I met while I was staying at his residence during my stay in America. He would always come into my room to say hi and show me his toys and ask me to take a picture of him. Natural light from two windows, one of which was half closed, gave more contrast. The white sheets on the bed proved to be an excellent reflector. Shot with a 60mm Leica on a Canon 20D.
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