Author: ludwigdesmet

Film portraits with the dropped Fujica GW690

Analog, people, portrait

sometimes weird things happen … or not

I dropped my Fujica GW690 a year ago 😱 it smacked to the ground and as a result the front lens element got all skewed. I was in quite a shock.

I still shoot with it though and it keeps producing excellent shots. I would have expected some kind of tilt effect happening but I see no faults in sharpness or anything like it. I shot a film of Kodak T-Max recently and all shots came out flawlessly. The film has been developed in Bellini Eco Developer and camera-scanned, edited in Adobe Lightroom. Thank you for watching!

Getting ready for you …

beauty, location, Nude

In some dark and deserted house I created this series together with Roos. She bought the house but it is still empty. I wanted to create a little story-line, so I asked her if I could photograph the process of first getting undressed and then getting all dressed up and ready for her partner …

somewhere in Belgium, on a cloudy day.

Thank you for watching, if you would also like a set of intimate images from yourself, for yourself or surprise someone else, please ask, I’m sure I can help you out!

For those interested, all images approx 1/100s at f/2.5 and ISO320 except for those in the hallway, shot at 1/13th. Canon R5 with Sigma 50mm f1.4 – developed in Adobe Lightroom

Eros was in the studio – the sequel

erotic, Nude, studio

With Sahri I always have a good time, she’s gained full confidence, we always have a good laugh during the sessions and most often the results are very good. We met again a couple of weeks ago (see my previous post) and did a couple of different things. This series made me remind of an earlier session we had done, titled ‘eros was in the studio’, hence the title of this post. Less slippery than the previous set, and in a slightly different light setup (just trying to work with different approaches every time) but still very intimate.

I hope you like them, I thought Wednesday was a good day for a mid-week pause 😉

it has been a while, the previous set of ‘Eros was in the studio’, you’ll need to scroll down quite a lot to find them, so under the images I’ll post a link to the original series.

Hope you liked them, if so, here’s the link to the previous set: eros was in the studio – NSFW please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. Thanks!

the full package

assignments, beauty, erotic, Nude

The full package …

I’m not really good at commercializing my art nude photo sessions and I’m not really sure I would want that either. I’m afraid I would quickly evolve into ‘what works well for every body’ (literally every body) poses and tricks and loose a bit of my creative freedom and explorations. Hence, I don’t do a lot of assigned sessions.

But once in a while people find my website and call me for a private session, as in this case, I’ll call them Mr and Mrs S. for privacy reasons.

For a couple of days, maybe weeks, we had an ongoing conversation via WhatsApp about the style and content this young couple was looking for and we agreed on a session date somewhere last summer. We looked together for some location options, and they chose a nice-looking place that included an exterior swimming pool and garden area.

They rented two consecutive nights in this beautiful B&B for the occasion, so in-between we had a full day available for the session. This left some room for additional session time if needed.

They also wanted professional make-up service and I looked for someone that was available and not too far from the shooting location.

Already some days before the shoot the weather announced ‘unstable’, with shattered showers and some sun. Prepare for the worst I thought, and I rented some extra light sources (led panels, color variable)

We met at 09:00 am, Mrs S’s make up was already ongoing and whilst I could move all my stuff into the house. I had a nice conversation with Mr S. He was about to leave to do some sports and have lunch with a friend, he wanted me to feel completely free and did not want to interfere in the session.

Mrs S. and I worked together all day, first started with some clothed shots to get warmed up and for her to understand my way of communicating for poses, then shifted to lingerie and nude shots, making full use of the entire place. The fact that we had an entire day available meant that we could develop a lot of different sets without running out of time. We had a bread lunch and coffee together and worked on afterwards within some new scenarios. At about 03:00pm Mr S. came back and then we worked on some duo shots, The session ended at about 05:00 pm. The weather had cleaned out and the swimming pool became very inviting, I left the couple to enjoy the rest of the evening in private.

After the session I came home with close to a thousand digital images, from which I selected about 150 really good images for them to choose from. Normally for a session of about 6 hours I provide 30 retouched images, with the option to choose more at an extra cost. They picked out 100(!) images. The session included a free ‘pillow book’ but on top of that they ordered a beautiful luxury ‘coffee table’ album containing the entire selection of 100 images.

I love this kind of assignments, the ability to tailor-make the entire session to the customers’ demands and delivering great products afterwards.

For privacy reasons I cannot show recognizable images, but these images already give you an idea of the results achieved. If you feel like having yourself photographed, please do contact me. I know it may seem daunting, but it’s a first for about everybody, and I don’t bite. I don’t even bark 😉

Film photography with Roos

Analog, Nude


I recently had a visit from Roos, this beautiful young lady wanted to know how it would feel to be (in lingerie or naked) in front of the camera. But perhaps she would be too timid to pose nude … and if possible also anonymously.

No sooner said than done … I spent an afternoon with Roos, and we completed two rolls on the Rolleiflex TLR. I grabbed the first roll from a ‘giveaway’ box from one of my colleagues at KISP in Ghent. It was no longer in the packaging and I had no idea how old it was. Film rolls have an expiration date. Was it 10, 20 or 30 years old, about when the colleague received his education?
It was a roll with a high (Ilford Delta 3200) ISO value, which allows you to photograph better in dark conditions. Given its age, I gave it 2 stops of extra light, and developed it a little longer. The film came out of the developer completely gray, with a fuzzy image that needed a lot of digital amplification to get a somewhat visible image. (after developing I scan my negatives for further processing, as I don’t have a darkroom for making prints… and don’t take time for this either).
The second roll was more controlled, recent film (Ilford HP5), exposed and developed according to standards. What is quite remarkable to me is that after post-processing there is hardly any difference. Film is very “stretchy” and “forgivable”.

I think the images have become very intimate and remain anonymous. I was apparently able to gain enough confidence quite quickly to also make nudes. That is perhaps partly my merit, but also largely due to the strength that lies within this woman in particular, but also within women in general. The anonymous character also gives the images something universal and there is less ’embarrassment’ if there is no face on it. Roos is very satisfied with the result and here on my blog I can show them in full power, in their full honesty.

The camera for this sequence was my good old Rolleiflex. Focusing is difficult with this one as well. Focusing goes through a frosted glass behind the top lens, the accuracy of which is deplorable. ‘correct within half a meter’ is the motto when I work with this camera. Since we were shooting indoors, it was also necessary to use the widest aperture, resulting in the shallowest depth of field. Wrong focus will result in a blurry photo anyway. Flou artistique. The grain of the film completes the image. The photo is taken through the bottom lens, 6×6 cm negatives on 120 roll film. You take 12 photos on a roll. I bought this camera in a lot of 5 cameras, a few were still usable. The rest is just good for decoration.

Thanks for reading and watching!

The skippers wife – Lazy morning

location, Nude

This is a selection of images I made in the master bedroom of a skippers barge. It was cramped, I had literally no place around the bed, it was dark, it was everything you fear for as a photographer, but it was nicely decorated with authentic elements, it was cosy and heated and I had a very willing model. (Sahri Nimi) As you might have noticed before, I love working with light, and I prefer too little light over too much light, how strange it may sound.Enjoy this wake-up moment, the skipper is having a beer and the lady of the house … errr … boat is enjoying a lazy morning.

enjoyed it, pls subscribe to my mailing list by clicking the triangle on the bottom of each page and fill in your email address. As an apprentice photographer you might be curious about my settings: I use a full frame Canon R5 camera, Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8 and ISO 1000. Shutter speeds between 1/50th of a second and 1/250th. If that is of interest to you, you might also want to take a look at my Patreon page where you’ll find a full behind the scenes video of this session there.

When I look back I suddenly realize that all these images (and a lot more, I admit) have been taken within one hour of time. … Efficiency 😉

how about a game of pétanque

location, Nude

Images always have a little extra when there’s a little storytelling involved I think.

I had this magnificent garden at my disposal and then I -per accident- found a set of pétanque balls, you know, the game that originates in the French ‘Provence’ where you have to aim heavy metal balls at a little ‘piggy’ ball. …

And that was that, I had my story • how about a game of pétanque •

thank you Sofie for being my perfect model that warm and sunny day.

 

thanks for watching!

Ludwig

Why I prefer women surprising their partner than vice versa

beauty, Nude, studio
Men often have the wildest fantasies about photo sessions.
They see their partner as the next playboy centerfold model … (if that still exists?) which of course is good and proof of how attracted they are to their partner …
With the best intentions they order a gift voucher from me for a nude photo shoot to surprise their partner, already excited by the idea (fantasy goes wild)  …
pwoaa, pwoaa, pwoaa … anticlimax (you know that sound from any TV quiz when a wrong answer is given)
Perhaps the lady is not at all ready for such a photo shoot, and certainly not if she has not chosen to do it herself, or if she has not been able to choose the photographer with whom she wants to collaborate. She feels forced, insecure, worried, even a little angry maybe …
Then as a photographer you get the difficult task of meeting the expectations of the man on one hand (he paid for the session and expects the best of results) and on the other hand guiding the lady in a photo session that she is not really ready for … no fun.
I personally prefer to get the lady on the phone: “I would like to surprise my partner with a spicy photo shoot of myself, is that possible with you?”
“Yes, ma’am, of course it is, shall I go over the options with you?” and off we go, with a guarantee of success, a happy, excited lady and most certainly a surprised, happy and exited partner.
So go on ladies, be brave, get that phone and call me now, you’ll be surprised how good you look on photo’s, your partner will be going wild you came up with the idea and you decided to do this for him (or her).
For the privacy of my client I made the images below ‘private’ 😉

 

The male nude, long awaited by female fans but an absolute premiere for me

Nude, studio

I admit, I am attracted to women more than men, that’s nature I suppose.

On the other hand, I rarely had the request for doing male nudes, until now. For me this was a premiere and an interesting experiment. Although I felt a little lost in what to photograph, and in the poses to work on, still I think we did a good session together. My model wanted to stay anonymous in the images, so that was a limitation to take into account.

I worked mainly with a low-key approach, but it was a continuous search for angles and light settings. We also experimented with some body lotion, and although I found it too greasy it did give different results.

Happy viewing, pls leave me your thoughts and comments below.

Ludwig

another lazy Sunday morning session. + BTS Video.

beauty, Behind the scenes Video, location, Nude

hi there,

please enjoy with me these results from another ‘lazy Sunday morning’ session I did with Alisson this time. Below you’ll find a link to the behind the scenes video of this particular session.

 

you wanna see how the session looks like, behind the scenes:

check it out here, you’ll need a Youtube account, as it is 18+ and it won’t play outside Youtube:

 

 

 

the beauty of available light – workshop results

location, Nude, Workshop

Hi there fans and followers,

I’m pleased to be able to show you some results from the individual ‘available light – art nudes’ workshops I gave last summer. It seems a long time ago already. …

The location proved very well suited for a range of light situations and with some creativity we managed to turn a ‘standard’ bed and breakfast location into a perfect photo location.

Model of the day, the always beautiful and elegant Riona Neve (http://rionaneve.com/)

Remember you can be part of this too, If you want upgrade your ‘available light’ portrait skills,  please drop me a line trough this page 

In the coming weeks I’ll post some images from the second individual workshop day, with Violaine as my model.

all the best,

Ludwig

A little bit of fashion … the sequel

Analog, beauty, location, people, photo gear, portrait, street, Uncategorized

remember these: … A little bit of fashion ? Those were all taken a couple of years ago in Brussels, when I met Erika Albonetti for a morning session. They were shot on film with the Rolleiflex twin lens reflex I have been cherishing for a couple of years now.

Time for a new ‘working collectible’, (although you’ve seen some results before with this camera here). The Fujica GW690ii, with a fixed 90mm f3.5 lens. Nicknamed the Texas Leica, it handles more or less like a Leica, but then one for big hands 😉

See the comparison with my Fuji X100f here, a big chuck of camera:

It is a viewfinder camera, but then in the medium format class, the negatives are with their size of  6×9 cm also huge in comparison with the X100f sensor size. (14.66 times bigger area)

This large format gives a narrower depth of film, so even with relatively closed apertures you still get narrow sharpness and softer backgrounds.

Like a lot of analog camera’s of older age, the Fujica has the shutter built into the lens, not in the camera. The shutter is a leaf shutter, a bit similar like an aperture, so opening from the center of the lens. The shutter speed is to be set on the lens as well as the aperture. focusing is manual and the viewfinder proves to be a lot more accurate than the matte screen on the Rolleiflex.

The camera itself is very simple in operation, there’s only a switch to be set to the right type of film 120 or 220, two shutter release buttons (one on top, one on the front side) and a film advancing lever (which you need to crank one and a half turn for a complete transport). There’s no built in light meter and no electronics at all, despite its rather modern looks and recent built year(1985), that’s rare. It has a built in frame counter (counts one unit per 10 frames) on the bottom of the camera. If the counter says 10 it has shot 100 frames. It also came in 6×7 (GW670) and 6×8 (GW680) film formats. These camera’s are well known for their robustness, with a fixed lens and so little things that can break, that seems logical. It weighs 1440 grams. It is frequently sold on Ebay, for prices ranging from €400 – €700.

As said before, focussing is a lot easier on this camera than on the Rolleiflex or for what its worth with the Voightlander Bessa I also have and which has the same film size but only a metering scale on the lens. With the Fujica I get every frame to be sharp (if I pay attention)!

Altough I still like the square format more, I’m ok with this 2×3 aspect ratio which we all know from current digital reflex camera’s. The number of shots per roll gets more limited though (8 in stead of 12) and thus you even need to be more attentive for each shot.

The images were made in Brussels, with Sofi ka, an Ukrainian model traveling Europe on a regular basis. We had a walk in Brussels in the morning, enjoying beautiful light in the city.

I shot this film in colour (Kodak Portra 160) and then another film in Black and white (see below). One film, alle shots: Sofi Ka in Brussels.

All negatives are ‘DSLR-scanned’ and converted to positives with Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom.

I also shot another film, which apparently was a gift from someone, and after further investigation by Ilford, the film turned out to be from 1992 … it came out all mottled and speckled, including the backpaper frame numbers in the negatives 🙁  bummer, although some people seem to appreciate the artistic qualities of it. …

Mjeah, maybe with a little bit of sepia colouring and some vignetting 😀 let me know what you thing

that’ll be all for today, thanks for reading!

Ludwig

 

 

 

Another lazy Sunday morning – self induced posing

beauty, location, Nude, people, Uncategorized

As you might have seen I hosted two private ‘available light art-nude’ workshops in July. I had rented a flat in the historical centre of Ghent for a couple of days and I had two different models coming in. My second day participant wanted to find out how he could enhance his story telling abilities trough images. I had Violaine as a model (currently also on the front page of my website) and one of the sets we did was the ‘lazy Sunday morning’ set, in which I had Violaine improvise and pose without instructions, I had done this before with models I worked with multiple times, and I knew these images prove to be very genuine and ‘real’ looking. The idea behind it is that when you simply observe your model during her daily routines, you’ll get your story without having to invent one. I was not sure how Violaine would (re)act, but she wonderfully expressed her ‘lazy morning feeling’ over the course of about half an hour, without me or the participants’ need for intervention in the form of posing instructions or imposing our ideas. I had my participant move freely about the bed, and took the opportunity to grab a series of images from different angles at the same time. I think it was a very good experience for both participant and model, and I think the images are great.

The images below are of course a selection of the shots made during this set, and selected to convey the idea we were after, but they all came naturally thanks to Violaine’s non posing qualities.

Please scroll down to the end for this weeks ‘specialty’ 😉

 
















 

 

Attention please!

Now for the specialty of this week, from next month on, I’ll offer one free photo session every month* to you, my audience.
• The nature of the session (portrait, fashion, glamour, nude …) will be your choice entirely.
• These sessions will be either studio or outdoor sessions, digital or film, to my choice.
• The first session will be scheduled on Wednesday afternoon September 1st, and then every month after that on the first Wednesday of the month. Count for two hours, always in the afternoon as I eventually want to be able to shoot with available light.
• If you want to participate in a free session, send me an email at ludwig-at-ludwigdesmet-dot-com right away. First come first serve. Your subject line should read ‘free photo session’.
• Don’t be shy, you don’t have to be a model, you can bring a buddy if you’d like, and I’ll make sure you get some wonderful souvenirs, for free!
• Open for women and men, but only for adults.

*The session will result in a uncertain number of images, digitally delivered in a watermarked version, available for purchase if you’d like that.

Lily plays pingpong

Analog, erotic, location, Nude

Some of you may or may not know the series of children’s illustrated books about the life of tiny (no caps), a little girl going trough all kinds of adventures, domestic or somewhere in a near/far garden.

It was very popular at the time I was a kid, and very beautifully illustrated. Titles were very varied but always started with the name tiny, check out the titles below on the www and you’ll see what I’m talking about. They were largely translated and distributed worldwide.

tiny op de boerderij (tiny on the farm)

tiny vindt een poes (tiny finds a kitty)

tiny doet aan sport (tiny does sports)

tiny viert feest (tiny has a party)

 

and that inspired me to do my own series of images, with a girl named Lily (Lilith actually, but to make the story complete I call her Lily) In my stories Lily is not the overly enthusiast girl from the original series but a ‘nothing ever happens here’ version of her, sometimes showing boredom or unhappiness. I made this series during the summer workshop week in August 2019, Lilith stayed overnight and we had an hour left before the participants would show up. I used the Rolleiflex TLR to make these shots. Enjoy!

• Lily cleans the workshop •

• Lily goes  cycling •

• Lily feeds the chickens •

• Lily gets firewood •

• Lily plays ping-pong •

• Lily makes firewood •

• Lily helps the plasterers •

• Lily gives water to the vegetables •

hope you enjoyed viewing this little fun series as much as we did making it, and sorry for not cleaning the dust speckles.

thanks to Lilith Etch for being my ‘stand-in tiny’

see you soon,

thanks for visiting,

Ludwig

Strolling trough Paris with the Rolleiflex – Kodak Portra 160

Analog, street, Uncategorized

For the first time I had color film with me for the Rolleiflex. One of the first times I shot Kodak Portra 160 too. I had limited myself to black and white because this is easily self-developed at home but not this time. (although I took a bunch of BW film with me too 😉 You have seen those images here)

Disclaimer, these images have been shot in 2019, you’ll notice why.

I think color has an added value in a lot of these images, and as a photographer it is also fun looking for images that benefit from color. I think I look differently when having the mind set to ‘color film’ than to ‘black and white film’. In this aspect I found this an interesting exercise.

The images were lab developed, scanned using my ‘DSLR setup’ (see movie link above) and imported into Adobe Lightroom using the Negative Lab Pro plugin. This software alone is worth an in depth study. I think the images get a sort of vintage feel due to the colors of this particular film. Enjoy!

 

Thank you!

beauty, Personal Pictures, studio

Thank you,

I hope that everybody is fine and in good health,
thank you to my public, thank you to my audience, loyal followers and fans of my personal work.

2020 was not an easy year, with Covid measures that have made it largely impossible to photograph people outside the bubble of one’s own family. In the meantime, when regulations were a little less strict, I was able to schedule a number of sessions, both personal work and private sessions, and that was good, I experienced a lot of pleasure doing them, because photographing people is and will remain my favourite activity.

The Covid Lockdown also has had a positive effect. During the first lockdown I rolled up my sleeves and built a separate room for a studio within an outbuilding in my garden. The studio is now ready for use, 4.5mx 8m and 3m high, one side black, the other side white, offering a ton of possibilities. A cozy wood-burning stove has also been installed so that the space can be used in both summer and winter.

My private clients, from fine art prints and private photo sessions, as well as my commercial clients, for product and architectural photography, make it possible to continue financially. Thank you again for that.

Of course I look forward to the opportunity to have more contacts again, I would love to put workshops back on my schedule and I also get a lot of demand for this, but I do not really see possibilities at the moment. Time will tell whether this will be possible again soon. For those who are interested in this, please be patient until then.

please don’t hesitate to comment and share your thoughts trough any channel, instagram, facebook, my blog or email …

Namaste,

Ludwig