Author: ludwigdesmet

Helmut Newton – Retrospective

erotic, exhibition, Nude, portrait

FOAM in Amsterdam had a retrospective exhibit on Helmut Newton, fashion, art, fetish and erotic photographer from the last century. I wanted to visit it, and it ran till september 4th, so yesterday we went for a visit, unfortunately for you, my readers, its over.

I had an autobiography on Helmut Newton since a couple of years now I guess, and I quit reading it for I got a little annoyed, even irritated by the rather arrogant, selfish, non woman-friendly narratives in this book. (Helmut Newton Autoportrait, by Robert Laffont).

Anyway, I still love his work, his way of depicting strong, beautiful women, and his way of combining fashion photography with daring eroticism, both implied and explicit.

The exhibit had a fine collection of prints, starting with his 60’s fashion work (that made me think a lot about a long time favourite of mine: Jean-Loup Sieff), over the more erotically oriented images in his long collaboration with Vogue, his personal work with protheses and nude women, his impressive ‘big nudes’ and finally his extensive list of portraits of famous people.

Especially interesting I found the film montage, made by his wife June, which gave a very intimate insight in the life and working atmosphere in which Newton, his wife and his entourage moved along. Not the spoiled kid he talks about in his biography, but a rather playful, humorist, (hard) working, focused photographer. It surprised me that some people started sniggering when he was instructing his models into a certain pose, and that made me think about how little is known about this kind of photography, this kind of dialogue between photographer and model, to people who are not part of this world. We discussed about it (Nathalie and me) and she decided she should film me when I’m working with my models. – GOOD IDEA! –

I was rather pleased to see so many people visit this exhibition (Sunday being the last day might have been a factor) and especially to see so many women around. This makes me think the perception of Helmut Newton being an ‘objectifier’ of women is not a general one.

His work is inspirational to me, it has long been underestimated from the photographic art scene, and it probably still is, it was daring in its time, and it still is daring to tackle the nude subject in our times, so not much has changed. There’s a lot of work to do, and its a tough job, but someone has got to do it, so let’s get going. 🙂

some impressions, © of the depicted images is Helmut Newton of course.

HN01 HN02 HN03

Thank you for reading,

ludwig

 

Strolling trough Paris with the Rolleiflex – Part I

Analog, Personal Pictures, street

we love Paris,

this means, Nathalie and I often go to Paris, and the more we go, the less we prepare our visit. We started using the ‘Vélo’lib’ bycicle’s (the city’s own public bycicle’s), an ideal means of transportation if you are not too scared to move along the traffic. (which can be ‘busy’ at moments)

this allows us to travel criss-cross, without limitations of public transports, and with the advantage of staying above surface (unless metro, which also has good service in Paris, but tucks you away underground).

I decided not to take a digital camera with me, and only look for opportunities with the twin lens Rolleiflex I have. It makes you less visible as a photographer, because you have a completely different body attitude (bent over looking from top into your camera) so people don’t notice you as much as they would when photographing with a reflex camera.

a first series of images I thought worth looking at:

 

 – (try to) follow the bride –

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 – Georgio Moroder is coming to town, but the letter spacing needs some fine tuning –

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 – Fondation Louis Vuitton –

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 – a book worth reading –LudwigDesmet_street-

 

Rolleiflex 3.5 TLR with Ilford Delta 100 Pro film.

thank you for watching, see you soon for some more images

 

ludwig

Ava playing Solitaire

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures

It’s hot outside, very hot, so let’s remain in the freshness of the castle library. No-one bothering us, some time to spend with … solitaire.

 

 

Ava playing solitaire

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Model: Ava

Hair: Nathalie

shot on location in Tournai (B) thanks to the owners of the house and a big thank you to Ava for her confidence and charm.

© ludwig desmet – 2016

Selfie – old style –

Analog, people, Personal Pictures, portrait

with the Rolleiflex

don’t ask for exposure info, cause I have none. aperture probably 1/3.5, film Kodak T-Max 100, shutter time will have been fairly slow. (1/15th or 1/30th of a second)

Focusing is getting better, I no longer use the split prism for focusing, but the fresnel concentric lines. When something comes in focus, the fresnel lines start ‘dancing’ 🙂 .

 

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thank you for watching.

ludwig

Camera calibration explained – part I

Lightroom, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

One of the often overlooked features of Lightroom is the camera calibration tab.

Camera calibration optimises the way Lightroom will interpret the RAW files of your specific camera. It reorganises the colour values in relation to a pre-defined target, and the way your camera reproduces this target.

In very short, RAW files do not have a colour profile embedded, nor do they contain a predefined color reproduction definition. It is up to your raw-editor to interpret the raw files and do some kind of a pre-development when importing and previewing on screen.

Current Lightroom versions use the ‘Adobe Standard’, or one of the options also available in your camera image settings modes (with Canon, this is for instance: Camera faithful, landscape, portrait, standard, … )

This is no guarantee for a correct reproduction of colours or brightness values.

In comes the camera calibration tool. I have the colorchecker passport photo from X-rite. This is a combination of a small piece of hardware (a plastic booklet with 2 screen printed colour target sides and a white face) and a piece of software to be installed on your system.

The simplest way of doing a camera calibration is a single light situation calibration, in which you take a picture in the light situation you will use for your images, including the colorchecker target. Take care the target is lit by the same light as your images that follow.

After that, shoot your images.

In Lightroom, you will need the first image with the target included to make build your camera profile. This is very simple by selecting the image -> export -> Colorchecker passport. This will automatically compare your camera’s ‘target reproduction’ with the target’s known values in the software, and build a ‘custom camera profile’ for you to start with. The new profile won’t show up until restart of Lightroom. (there are certainly more detailed step by step explanations on Youtube 😉 )

Below you can see the target without and with the newly activated camera calibration.

target change split

not a big deal you’ll probably say, and this camera is indeed rather color-correct compared to some others I’ve seen. To make things more obvious, I placed both images onto each other, and made a layer mask to cover up half of the targets:

target change half-half

left half with ‘Adobe Standard’, right with my custom color profile on the Canon 5Ds.

Colours are more saturated, some a tad lighter, others a little darker, some colours shift slightly, (note the purple and the yellow-green on the right) but especially the blacks are less deep. This is especially helpful if you need to uplight the dark tones (shadows) in LR.

These are two versions of the same RAW file, but they get different RGB values. This means that the initial state of your raw file is very much dependent of your Camera calibration settings. If you are very fond of let’s say the ‘camera portrait’ picture style settings on your camera, then you might as well use this profile in your RAW-editor. (as photographing in RAW will not edit the data in your images, but the preview on the camera’s back is based on a jpg file modified by the settings in your camera. your preview will still get the ‘camera portrait’ picture style view, but your RAW will not reflect it.

That is why an image might look good when importing in LR, and then switch to something dull a second later. The initial look is from the embedded preview file, generated by your camera, the second look is from the preview generated by LR, based on the camera calibration settings currently active (standard setting = Adobe Standard)

 

If you want to experiment with camera calibration without buying the tools needed, try using the ‘picture style calibration settings’ available in the drop down menu. They should reflect the ones you have available on your camera. The differences should be obvious.

Below two examples of different ‘picture style camera calibration’ settings. Note the changing skin tones in the first image, the changing sky colour in the second.

picture style sample I

picture styles sample II

 

The process version is the way LR interprets RAW files since earlier versions, you should currently use the 2012 version. (July 2016)

 

To give a real world example, first image with ‘Adobe Standard’ profile, second with Custom made profile:

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I think that the shaded area’s are very obviously lighter in the second picture, with the correct camera calibration profile. These are unedited images. For me this lighting situation is very common, high contrast, backlit situations, where you want to make sure that the highlights are not blown out (clipped). As you know I seldom use extra light on a shoot (except for a reflector from time to time. In this way I absolutely need to be able to enhance my shadow area’s to a descent light level. This less dark starting situation is of a lot of help.

The edit looks like this (same editing on both images) Adobe Standard above, 5Ds profile below. In the first image, the colours are slightly red, but especially the corner shadows completely run black (due to my vignette, I know). Compare with the corners in the second image, where I can keep plenty of detail, with the same amount of vignetting.

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When looking in detail, you’ll see that I keep a lot more detail in the hair, and I have less noise appearing in the second image. (upping the shadows a lot also emphasises image noise)

face detail

Image: Jenn at Baudries Castle

Hair: Nathalie

Make up: Heidi

I think Jenn has a large amount of ‘Nathalie-Portman-looks’ here 😉

Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A   –   1/640s   f2.8   ISO 160

 

see you soon for part two of this explanation, and for a lot more images:

summer time, shooting time

 

ludwig

Ava playing Solitaire

beauty, Personal Pictures

Ava playing solitaire at the chateau.

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Hair and assistance: Nathalie
Model and make up: Ava
Photography: Ludwig Desmet

Canon 5Ds with Canon 24mm f1.4 L II – 1/8s  f3.5  ISO100

available as limited edition print, for info: ludwig@ludwigdesmet.com

Yashica 635 …

beauty, Personal Pictures, portrait

… and a very nice photographer.

 

Jane again, she got to grips with my old Yashica 635.

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Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A – 1/20s  f4.0  ISO 320

 

thank you for watching, …

just a small reminder that a small selection of my work is to be seen till the end of August in ‘Het Godshuis’, Leemweg 11, 9980 Sint-Laureins, Belgium.

ludwig

 

for fine art prints or shoot bookings: ludwig@ludwigdesmet.com

Jane at Baudries castle

beauty, erotic, location, Nude

from the shoot – and exhibit at Baudries Castle – Dikkelvenne

 

 – Jane –

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Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG A  –  1/50s f2.5 ISO 160

Model: Jane, Hair: Nathalie, Make up: Heidi.

Although the place was one big transformation site, we managed to do some really nice things up there. Enjoying a wonderful bright day and using some of the original interior elements as a decor, both Jenn and Jane proved great models. Thank you Jane, thank you Jenn. A lot more images of this day will follow in the coming weeks.

A big thank you to the owners of the castle, for letting me work there, and for their hospitality, both for the shoot and the exhibit. The exhibit is over, some of the images can be seen at ‘Het Godshuis’ – Sint Laureins, till the end of August.

Gafodi f50 Exhibit

exhibition, location

Just a small reminder of the next group exhibit I’m taking part in. Opening this evening june 3rd. in the usual Gafodi exhibit location (Racing, markt Gavere). The exhibit will be open daily from june 4 till june 20. The exhibit gathers 13 photographers, all having an indoor ànd an outdoor exhibit, in 12 different locations outdoor, 10 locations indoor.

My work can be seen in the entrance alley towards ‘Kasteel Grenier’ in Gavere, and in the horse-stables of ‘Kasteel Baudries’ in Dikkelvenne. The work that can be seen in the latter has been created during a one day ‘artist in residence’ session at the castle. The castle is not open for public, but you can see a glimpse of it through my images.

The exterior exhibit shows a selection of images from the last 3 years, ‘previously unexhibited’ work mainly.

Main theme of both exhibit remains ‘sensuality, femininity, fine eros’.

All exterior locations are free, there’s a common entrance fee of €5 for all interior locations.

a small impression of the interior exhibit:

Gafodif50_LD_interior

 

you are all very welcome!

 

ludwig