All images © Vaidotas Mišeikis, all rights reserved __________________________Go full screen!^

I am an Electronic Engineering PhD student at the University of Leeds and spend the majority of my scarce free time travelling around Northern England with my camera. I am originally from Lithuania and came to Leeds to do a university degree in 2005. In 2006, after getting a DSLR, I really got into photography and got completely hooked since then, focusing mainly on landscape photography. You can find more of my work at my website and my flickr account. Several of my photos are also available as prints at RedBubble.

Vaidas

The people of the Ruhr take pride in their industrial heritage, they have a “Route Industriakultur”  encouraging visitors to tour the sites left behind by the industries that once thrived in the “Ruhrpott”

Joe took this visit beyond the fences that keep the public out, delving into the very workings of Ruhrkohle Actiengesellschaft (Ruhr Coal PLC) and documented what is left today.

All images © Joe Stenson, all rights reserved.The gallery’s best seen full screen!——————————-^

More:

• website:  www.joestenson.co.uk
• twitter: @Leedsurbex

Joe Stenson presented to an Exposure Leeds “Talk&Social’ in 2011 | Read More

This is the resulting image!

My work represents the detritus of a disposable society, where buildings and places are the remnants of formerly bustling and successful organisations and institutions. The stillness of these locations is what interests me most following what were often centres of communities and places where people shared experiences.

I have been recording forgotten places for six years now and I have moved away from recording digitally and towards the more detailed medium of medium format film. Human activity is what forms the details in these buildings and my most recent work is in response to the remnants of human activity visible in these details rather than the buildings themselves.

In the future, my work will continue to be as much an exploration of the social rise and fall as it is of the buildings that mark the fall. I intend to amass a substantial documentation over a period of decades of my small corner of West Yorkshire which will present communities thriving and declining along with our heritage and the reasons behind it.

James Lester

All images © James P Lester, all rights reserved. View more: www.jamesplester.com

Editor: A bit of an intro… a while back we considered the idea of an Exposure Leeds magazine, and a lot of headway was made in preparing content for the magazine but, for a multitude of reasons, this never actually became reality. Rather than waste all the effort that went into preparing this material, we’re now publishing all this material in a ‘magazine’ section of the website.

If you have a project, event or other material you think should be shared with others then please get in touch – we’re looking for new material to publish all the time.

Wuthering Heights banner on Leeds Town Hall

The 3rd of November saw the beginning of the 25th Leeds International Film Festival, the biggest in the UK outside of London, showing everything from Anime to Zombie films with some live performances thrown in, I was lucky enough to get involved after Jon posted a link for voluntary positions for the festival and I managed to bag myself a job as a Digital Assistant. I had no idea what I would be asked to shoot or what events I was going to cover and had no idea how photography was going to fit in with cinema and I was even more surprised to learn that only two percent of cinema hits the big screen and more and more people are now becoming interested in small screen cinema and short films rather than blockbuster movies. After watching 45-minutes of trailers for the selected films it certainly sparked an interest for me also, Leeds Town Hall has also recently upgraded the cinema sound system with the intention of more films being shown at the venue.

Candida Doyle (Pulp’s keyboard player) at The Beat is the Law

My first assignment was to cover the opening gala with the premier of Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights introducing Leeds-based newcomers James Howson, Shannon Beer and Solomon Glave. I got a real taste of what it’s like for a photographer working in the press industry. There were lots of people working on the event rushing around and waiting for people to arrive and the BBC Look North team set up on the steps of the Town Hall. I was asked to take some shots of the cast whilst the news team goes live – only to discover later while watching the 10 o’clock news that I was on it! The night after was the story of Pulp – The Beat is the Law with a question and answer session with keyboard player Candida Doyle, a Sheffield based documentary about the struggle of bands, young people, miners and the evolvement of music through the 1980’s and ending happily when Pulp headlined at Glastonbury when another band dropped out – bringing them moderate success.

Cast & Director – Sound it Out

My next shift was at Leeds’ gem – the Hyde Park Picture House – which I have never visited before. If you haven’t been there its certainly worth a visit to this beautiful 1914 building with lots of character. I shot two events here on two separate nights first Sound it Out, a documentary about South Shields’ last record shop – a heart-warming funny film about the day-to-day happenings and the different characters who shop there, including a very real message about the struggle of small towns throughout the UK. It was very surreal seeing someone on screen then next thing you are shooting images of them stood right in front of you.

Miss Behave Sword Swallower – Professor Vanessas Performing Wonders

Secondly was Professor Vanessa’s Performing Wonders – Vanessa is indeed a real professor of the history of film at Sheffield University and was accompanied by a magician, a sword juggler, one of the world’s last female sword swallowers, Miss Behave, and Britain’s Got Talent semi finalist and Hoolahoop legend Marawa the Amazing. “Is this really cinema?” I hear you ask – and yes it is! Old silent films of dance, tricks & performing circus arts with a piano accompaniment was extremely interesting and enjoyable and although the light wasn’t great for taking images in there it was a brilliant performance and very enjoyable!

Finally I went to the Hi Fi club to cover folk singer Serious Sam Barrett and his chosen documentaries rarely seen American folk shorts: Mouth Music, It Ain’t City Music and Mermaids, Frogs Legs and Fillets. Local Leeds lad Sam’s understanding of his genre and skills with his 12-string guitar not to mention his voice – second to none. There were plenty of people turned up to hear him sing, we also got to take a look into Sam’s normal life with a documentary his friend and colleague Hardeep Pandhals – Sam at 30.

Serious Sam Barrett

The film festival had so much more to offer than this small example, a comic con,workshops and many other films from Anime to Zombie flicks where shown, so if you didn’t get a chance this year give it a visit next year and if you want more than that apply to be a digital assistant and get behind the scenes, it’s well worth it!

Thanks to all who helped by nominating us, to the judges, and our fellow nominees – we were in great company. Also a big thanks to NTi Leeds for inviting us to the event.

We were also shortlisted for best blog and director, Jon Eland, was also shortlisted as ‘Leeds Digital Star’.

How did the photo hunt idea come about – what originally gave you the idea?
Photohunt came about via a discussion with a friend about how we had cameras and enjoyed photography, but felt really self-conscious walking about taking photos. I’d been arranging several events across Leeds for fun stuff to do – there’s never enough fun stuff going on, so I wanted to appeal to people who wanted more than just to sit in a pub, but the sort of people who do sit in pubs. I’m also not a brilliant photographer – the camera rarely come off automode – so I decided to set up an event that was all about having fun with cameras and getting people used to feeling comfortable with them out in public. I didn’t want to try and be a photography club – Exposure Leeds do so well in encouraging photographers, I wanted to target people like me who don’t see themselves as photographers at all, but who had access to a camera and wanted to use for more than just facebook shots. We’ve always tried to make it inclusive and friendly – the aim is to have an atmosphere of ‘pub quiz on the go’.

How was your first event? What came out of it? What feedback did you get from those who took part?
The first event went really well, I expected perhaps two people to turn up but it was quite a big group, with everything from cameraphones to DSLRs; and everybody came back at the end of the hunt too! The feedback was that the frantic nature of it (you only get an hour to take pictures) and the informal atmosphere really worked in people ‘taking pictures’ rather than ‘making photography’ – you can spend the whole hour getting that ‘perfect shot’, but you’d be missing out on a lot of it. There’s never been an aim to get great pictures, though we have had some, it’s all been about having fun, and I think that’s been achieved from the very first hunt. In fact, very little has changed since that first hunt at the start of the year!

Tell us more about what we will find when we take part in the photo hunt?
Photohunt is basically a game. You get a starting point, a list, and a time limit (usually an hour). In groups you go off round Leeds with a list of 50 words to take pictures of, some obvious (fence, window) some obtuse (superhero, unicorn). It’s not a competition, interesting shots are usually preferred over beautiful ones (bonus points for punnage or inventive interpretations of the list), and you can take the photos individually or as a group effort; and it’s all totally at your own pace, and your own discretion – we don’t judge the final shots, we just enjoy looking at them. For winter we’re actually relocating indoors, so you’ll have challenges rather than a list, but the Holbeck and Beeston hunt will follow the format of the summer hunts. The main thing to point out is that photohunt is for all abilities and all people – it’s entirely up to you how you interpret it and how much effort you put into it – I take daft shots, some people take gorgeous intricate shots; I never ever run, but some people cover miles!

What are you most looking forward to from the event in Holbeck and Beeston?
I’m really excited about it, as I don’t know the area at all, so I’ll be hunting alongside everyone else! I think the event really promotes the aim of enthusiasm over technical ability, and I’m looking forward to seeing all sorts of people take part; and of course getting some interesting shots of bits of the area you wouldn’t normally notice.

…and what do you think to the Looking Good Holbeck and Beeston project?
This is the first time I’ve got involved with the project, but I think it’s brilliant. There’s so much stuff going on in communities outside the city centre and unless you live *right there* you rarely find out about them. I’m really looking forward to discovering another part of Leeds, not just through photohunt but through all the events going on as part of the project. Hopefully other communities will take note and we’ll be overrun with great projects through the whole LS postcode.

Finally; give us the sales pitch – where should we be? By when? And with what?
Leeds photohunt will be taking over Beeston and Holbeck on 26th November between 12 and 3pm. We’re still finalising details of where we’ll be going, but these will be available nearer the time on the South Leeds Life website and on www.leedsphotohunt.blogspot.com – all you need to bring is a camera (any camera – disposable, cameraphone, professional DSLR) and wear comfy shoes; and of course, like always, photohunt is totally free!

If you’re on Facebook you can sign up for the event (and receive updates)

A small sample gallery of images from previous photo hunts; thanks to Ian J Bowden (@QualityLobster) for letting us share them! The main image is Ian’s also.

The photo hunt is supported by Leeds Photo Hunt, Leeds Digital Festival, Health for All and Looking Good Holbeck & Beeston

• Louisvillians: a series of portraits of those people who inspired, enthused and excited me during my visit.
• NULU / East Market District: the start of a project examining this key part of the city’s history and future.
• Weekend Coffee Break, Louisville: my images from the photowalk along Frankfort Avenue with my new photography friends in the US.

Using flash effectively and learning about lighting is often the “final frontier” in a photographer’s journey to mastering photography.

This is part four in a five part series on using your detachable SLR flash creatively. Part one covered flash to ambient ratios. Part two covered “shutter drag”. Part three covered bounce flash. You can read them here all on this site.

This instalment is going to cover off-camera flash. By now you should have a good understanding of how your flash affects your exposure, how to balance it with the ambient light and how to bounce if off nearby walls or ceilings to make it look like a much larger light source. All of this stuff becomes easy when you practise.

It’s worth taking a little step to the side here for a moment. I often hear people say that they don’t need to understand flash photography as they’re “natural light photographers.” I’ve never met a skilled natural light photographer who isn’t also a reluctant master of flash photography. That’s simply because the best way to understand, see and learn to control natural light is to first teach yourself about light by mastering flash. So even if you’re a “natural light” shooter, this stuff is well worth the effort. I guarantee it’ll make you a better natural light photographer.

So what’s the deal with off-camera flash? As long as your flash sits on the hotshoe of your camera, it will always be fixed in position relative to your lens. Every landscape-oriented photo you take will be lit from above and every portrait-oriented photo will be lit from the side. And not by much, as your flash is only a few centimeters away from your lens.

That means that your photos will always have that slightly ‘over-flashed’ feel to them. I don’t necessarily mean they’ll be over-exposed, just that they’ll have a fairly flat standard look. Pretty much the same as if you’d taken them with a compact point&shoot, rather than a $10,000 SLR getup. The point of all this gear we use is that it gives us significant advantages over compact cameras. But with our flashes on the hotshoe, all our gear isn’t giving its best.

I’ve shown you how you can make the most of on-camera flash with bouncing and shutter-drag techniques, which are essential tools in any photographer’s technique list, but to really make the most of your lighting, you need to get your flash off-camera.

This means you’ll get separation of your flash from your camera and lens.

But if your flash isn’t in the hotshoe, how do you fire it? There are several ways.

Easiest: If you’re lucky, you won’t need any extra equipment. Your camera’s popup flash might fire your flash, even on TTL. Check out my video for how to set this up using Nikon’s amazing “CLS” lighting system.

Some Canon, Sony and Olympus systems also have wireless flash functionality. If you have two Nikon flashes (or Canons for example) then one flash in the hotshoe can also act as the “Master” to control, and fire, the “Slave” anywhere in range. These two flashes may be the same model of flash, just set to two different modes. So if you shoot a top-end pro SLR that doesn’t have a pop-up flash, you may still be able to do this.

Easy: An off-camera cord. This is a simple piece of gear that has a male hotshoe on one end that goes on your camera and a female hotshoe on the other for your flash. Check out my video summary of off-camera cord use.

Make sure you buy the off-camera cord that works with your camera and flash or you might not get the TTL metering you’re going to want. You can get them either made by the manufacturer (Canon, Nikon, etc) or straight out of China. The Chinese versions are always cheaper but many aren’t made with the same attention to detail so do check this before choosing. You can use a PC cord instead, but I’m only going to suggest you use TTL as you have to set your flash manually with a PC cord.

Advanced: You start getting into significant investments when you go to wireless TTL systems, but the advantages are total reliability, considerable range and incredibly versatile functionality. The gold standard for off-camera TTL wireless flash at the moment is the Pocket Wizard Flex system. Radiopoppers also do a really cool alternative that I think comes in a little more affordably too.

There are some other wireless systems like the Elinchrom Skyports but as they’re mainly designed for studio systems, they don’t work with TTL.

I prefer to use my Nikon’s CLS system and always ALWAYS carry an off-camera cord just in case something goes wrong. It’s essential if you’re a pro photographer or anyone who takes their shooting very seriously to always have backups. An off-camera cord is the perfect backup for wireless gear.

OK. So that’s the how. Now for the why.

Here are some almost-straight-outta-the-camera examples shot at a tradeshow recently…

This is on-camera flash. I think my model Sinead knew what it would look like, so decided she wasn’t happy.

Now for off-camera flash with a Nikon SB800 fired wirelessly by the popup on my Nikon D90 held at arm’s length. Again, not pretty.

Here’s an example of a super simple off-camera photo where I’m holding an orbis® off to one side. You can even see my light source in the photo… but note how pleasant the light now looks on her features, with a soft fall-off that’s much easier on the eye and much closer to the way natural light might fall in through a window. The light in this photo is so much better than the light with bare off-camera flash thanks to using a larger light source, like a small softbox or in this case my orbis®

Natural light very rarely comes from right next to your eyes, which is my theory for why photos taken with on-camera flash look so characteristically slightly out of place. When we get our flash off-camera we start to be able to mimic the light that’s all around us that comes in from oblique angles. Light isn’t always the same size either; that’s to say that sometimes a light source is tiny, like a candle or a torch and sometimes it’s huge, like a large skylight or window. When we get our flashes off the hotshoe it also gets a lot easier to change the size and shape of the light as well as its direction.

That’s going to be my topic for my final instalment next time around when I’ll dive in detail into using off-camera flash.

Links, resources and cool lighting sites:

• http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=37811 to let me know what you think of this series, and tell me what you’d like me to cover
• http://www.pocketwizard.com/products/transmitter_receiver/
• http://www.radiopopper.com/products
• www.orbisflash.com
• www.lumiquest.com
• www.honlphoto.com
• www.youtube.com/enlightphoto
• http://www.dg28.com/blog/technique/index.htm

- by James Madelin, inventor of the orbis®, pro photographer and lighting workshop tutor. © James Madelin 2011

Georgia, we were looking at Snapshot Leeds with intrigue – in one sentence, what is it?

Snapshot Leeds is an all-inclusive event bringing together the people of Leeds and exposing its essence through the medium of photography.

Ok, that’s cool – so tell us more about the sort of photographs and photographers you’re aiming to attract…
There was no specific demographic in mind on creation of the event. We wanted to attract a diverse range of participants which would hopefully reflect the diverse nature of the population of the city. Only in this way could we truly illustrate life in Leeds. With regards to the photos we hope are submitted the same applies; we want to see the true version of the city. Although we are pleased to except some of the amazing artwork we have done so far, we do not want to discourage those who don’t have the experience or hardware to produce such spectacle; we are much in the opinion that raw photography is much more expressive of genuine feelings.

Snapshot Leeds website - click to visit

How did the idea for this come to you?
At one of the earlier Leeds Digital Festival planning meetings I pitched the idea of a photography event but all I had in mind was a low-key exhibition showing the work of local artists and reflecting life in Leeds. But the idea for Snapshot Leeds seems to have taken on a life of its own and the more I thought about the event the more ideas seemed to come to make it into something really cool. I also wanted to make it more inclusive to echo the ethos of the festival, in making our city realise how digitally engrossed we actually are. It really has seemed to have snowballed and has seemed overwhelming at times but I’m really excited about the direction it has taken.

Tell us more about what you’ll be doing with the photos – and the timing for this display
All photos submitted will be archived for the main exhibition. Each day a ‘Photo of the Day’, will be chosen from those submitted. At the event (being held on the 21st of November at Leeds’ Corn Exchange) each picture of the day will be printed and displayed for attendees to view, we will have exhibition boards where images will have been blown up and smaller photos will be hung from washing lines, just something fun that reflects the sense of community where trying to promote. All photos submitted will also be projected onto a screen so everyone who has uploaded work will have the chance to see their image displayed in one of the city’s oldest and most treasured landmarks.

The website looks great and is simple to use I hope you’ll get loads of submissions. What, in your mind, what makes a picture of the day?
The picture of the day is chosen mostly on what the picture says about the city. A different style of picture will also be chosen each day for a more interesting bricolage of themes styles and medium used to take the photo. I personally appreciate those which are specific to that day or to the season or current event within the city. I am hoping to cultivate a wide variety of photos for the exhibition

It's a kind of magic...

We’re guessing you also take photos – so can you take a photo today and share it with us?
I have attached a photo I took today! (right) I came across this on my way to work this morning, how have I only just noticed the 15ft golden Freddie Mercury?! Most of my more intricate work I could share are of landscapes and wildlife and to be honest aren’t even in Leeds! Aside from this I wanted to share and entrench again the raison d’etre of the event; we’re really looking for subjects for example that make you laugh on your way to work, university or college, heading out shopping or on a night out! We also want to promote the use of mobile devices within the event, again echoing the ideals of the festival as a whole; that most people are unaware how much media effects their lives and if you think your not into digital, most of the time you will be wrong! I also wanted to share this image to show a more jovial side to the city, I love that the council approved a giant statue for advertising purposes and it promotes the arts and culture within the city.

Finally – what are you hoping this project does or achieves?
Well mainly I hope that people will come to the event have a laugh and have a real look at the city around them through the eyes (or lenses) of its residents. The aim was always to bring all walks of life together through something they could share within the digital sphere. I hope we can achieve a sense of community and pride from the people of Leeds and I really believe that contributing to something yourself achieves that sentiment.

Ok – time for the plug – how does someone take part?
All you have to do is go to www.snapshotleeds.co.uk to upload your shot!
All images will be displayed on the night and all ‘photos of the day’ will remain in the exhibition for a week after the initial event.
You can also find us on Facebook page designed by Roger Suggett (@roj_suggs) where photos of the day will be exhibited.
Or follow us on Twitter @snapshotleeds for all the latest news and information about the event!