L@@K: Australian PJ deserves recognition and support

Today I had the opportunity to meet with proabably Australia's

best documentary photojournalist Mathias Heng. This is my story

about this fabulous PJ with an eye for detail and a passion for

truth.

I got in contact with Mathias Heng because I had seen some of

his work and was very interested in seeing more. It isn'tt evry day

when you can just call up a famous PJ, and ask to pop in and

say "hi". When I arrived at his ofice/semi gallery, I was greeted

by a smallish 5ft 4inchs-ish chinese gentleman who was

extremly humble and polite. He greeted me warmly and as i

stepped into his office, i was amazed at all his fantastic shots

from places like East Timor, Afghanistan, South Africa, Nepal

and other war torn places.

Many of you may not have heard of this man, but I can assure

you, it isn't due to the lack of quality of his images. Infact, I believe

his images would definately be better than Steve McCurry and

rival those of Sebastiao Salgado. His compositions seem to

resemble somewhat those of Eugene Smith, excpet without the

manipulation. Mathias relies mainly on his 35/50 Summicrons

on his 5 M6 bodies, and he also has a 24mm and 90mm for the

odd ocassion, but most of his shots, about 80% are taken with

the 35mm Summicron, most wide open.

Mathias is about to launch his first book to my surprise. I thought

he would've had many before, but he has had difficulty finding

sufficient sponsorship to do so. This new book, being released

in the next couple of months is about East Timor's struggle for

independence, with images from 1999 to June of this year. I can

assure you, after seeing many of his imges, he is an unsung

hero in photojournalism, and his lack of marketing power is

probably due to his fairly quiet and humble nature.

I would urge all of you to take a look at his website at

www.geocities.com/mathiasheng, and if you enjoy his images,

get behind him and spread the word about his work, and maybe

even support his efforts by purchasing a copy of his book once it

is released. Mathias Heng is not just another copy of the

McCurry's or Salgado's. I can assure you that Mathias's work is

unique and is totally unmanipulated. Nothing is posed or setup,

and he never crops his images, instead relying on correct

technical abilit at the time of taking the photograph.

His website is quite slow and most if not all images are in black

and white, whereas a lot of those shots were shot in colour. I

hope you all can appriciate his work as I have.

Well, one thing's for sure, if it all works out for him, he'll need a new web host. I tried the link and sure enough it said he had exceeded the bandwidth limit (well, they said it in even less technical terms than that) and that I should try again later.

That's a bummer.

I knew the name was familiar. If you have a copy of the Leica brochure, "The Program," look on page 24 to see Mr. Heng.

Cheers,

Arturo

Hello Kristian,

thank you for pointimg this out to us. Have heard his name and seen pictures before, very, very impressive indeed.

Will look out for the TIMOR- book in a few months. Unfortunately, for most people oversees (that´s from your point of view in A.) things are so far away, that >normal< book store visitors are not too interested, I´am afraid. It´s a shame.

Best regards

OK, his site isn't great, and the images are somewhat distorted

on screen. Here are a couple I have scanned.

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<img

src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=890

427">

</center>

Front cover of Eureka Street Magazine

<center>

<img

src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=890

437">

</center>

A picture taken from Eureka Magazine

He is probably about 32 to 38. Not too sure. When his book is

launched I'll let everyone know, and maybe try to provide a way of

getting easy access. He doesn't have a secretary or someone to

help him. He does everything on his own. His work is exactly

taht- his work! A truly inspiring man. Damn that download didn't

work. Here is one.

Hi kristiam\n

I've got a great Idea! As soon as you can supply us with a title and Publisher, those of us who are genuinely interested, can request the book from Amazon. If enough of us do it, they will carry it. I'll be most happy to be among the first. Maybe Kristian, you can get together with this Gentleman and get his website hosted by Yahoo or some other uptodate web host. There is NOTHING slower than Geoicities. As an example, yahoo costs $14.95(am) a month for 100 megs. From experience, I can tell you it's reliable, fast and user friendly.I'm sure there are lots of others as well.

That's a great idea ned.N I can assure you that his book is going

to be first rate. I would go as far as to say that he would definately

be one of the greats of this generation. He's just so humble in

terms of his personal marketingHe has a very unique

perspective without going to far to look creative , like some other

PJ out there today. His photos depict, truth, compassion,

despare and humanity's efforts to survive in a desperate and

needy world. I can't stress enough how his photos ionfluenced

me when I was at his gallery. Simply awesome!! Information

about his Australian exhibition can be seen at

http://www.ausaid.gov.au/ceremonies/photo.cfm

Kristian,

Thanks for sharing. I too tried to see his site but got an error

message: "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded

its allocated data transfer."

I'd really like to see his work, and its great to see leica users

supporting leica pj's.