Wedding Dress – Nice and Naughty

I normally don’t do weddings, this shoot has been a kind of a ‘after wedding’ gift from the bride to the bride. 🙂

Never a bad thing if you can give yourself a gift. Elisa chose to have herself portrayed as a souvenir for later.

We played around with a lot of different themes, here’s the wedding dress theme. We started nice, we ended a bit naughty.

Extremely difficult shooting situation, with almost no light (1/25s at f2.8 and ISO640) a tripod is of good help in such situations. All images Canon 5D II and Canon EF 100 mm f2.8 Macro L IS. A tripod and live view allow for accurate focusing (using live view zoom modes and the tripod takes care of long shutter speeds. Be careful to tell your model not to move during exposures.

I hope you like them.

thank you for watching,

ludwig

locked in, or embraced

beauty, Personal Pictures

for you to choose …

thank you for watching

ludwig

wake up – self induced posing

beauty, Personal Pictures

There’s a lot going on on the internet about how to get your model in the right pose. Workshops, do’s and don’ts, streaming video’s, the basic rules for a good pose, etc. …

Now what if we forgot all about it, and just have the person in front of the lens completely be herself? That is what I tried a couple of weeks ago with two ‘recurring’ models. They both had been with me for a shoot before, so they more or less know how I work and what to expect. I explained them that I wanted a part of the shoot to be completely void of instructions from my side. After all, I am a man, and when I put my models in a pose, this is man-mind driven, and can never be completely natural. I asked them to ‘not seek’ me with their eyes, pretend as if I was not there, and just slowly wake up from the comfortable spot I gave them.

Confidence is a key-word I guess, in this kind of work, since they do not know what I want, they do not know what I see, and they do not know when I’m going to take a picture. They must be self-aware, at ease with the surrounding environment, with me and with the idea that they can just simply enjoy this moment of quietness and peace.

Self induced posing, it is 100% the woman in the pictures. All natural. I hope you like them. Thank you Justine.

The sun was slightly warming the place, it was quiet and nice, honestly I think she would have stayed in bed, but that wouldn’t have given us these nice pictures wouldn’t it.

thank you for watching, I have more images with Justine waiting to be published.

ludwig

Shadow play

beauty, Nude, portrait

I brought a mosquito net into my studio space. I installed it on the attic.

We fooled a bit around with the bright light that drops into this space when the sun is coming in. The shadow creates a second person in the space. I kinda liked how the shadow and the original interacted with each other.

Fine art nude

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Sir,

Could you please do a shoot with me?

Sure Ma’m. The honour is mine.

– Elisa –

Canon 5D II with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG A. 1/30s f2.8 ISO400

Black lingerie

beauty, Personal Pictures

a first part of a shoot I did recently with Justine. We worked together earlier, this was our third meet. Things went smooth and the weather was fine. Some splendid images in this shoot, more to come.

Thank you Justine, for this fine morning.

Images with Canon EF 135mm f2 L (standing against the wall) and Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A.

thank you for watching,

ludwig

An angel in my garden – NSFW

beauty, location, Nude, Personal Pictures

Hello there,

some nice days in september allowed for some extra outdoor work.

the atmosphere in the garden was nice, the model was feeling good and relaxed. We spent some time here enjoying the sun an warm weather. The most difficult thing to tackle are the bright highlights. It is almost impossible not to wash out the highlights if you want some decent light in the shadow area’s. thats why it is actually much easier to shoot in a softly clouded sky situation than with bright light. Exposing for the bright highlights will give you near black shadows, exposing for the shadows will give you over-exposed hightlights.

I do not have an assistant with a sun-washer filter, so I often will shoot in a back-lit situation, with some highlight clipping in the bright area’s, and a lot of fill light in post processing. An alternative is seeking for the cover of a leaf tree, as we did in some images.

Elisabeth did great. Thank you. I hope you like the images.

Except last two (50mm Sigma) all images with Canon 135 mm f2.0 at f2.5

Miss-Development / Developing sample LR settings

beauty, Lightroom, Personal Pictures

Hi,

Another example of a Lightroom development process.

Two stages of LR development, and in this image I added a bit of photoshop sparks.

Oh my, bad exposure in the first place. Working against bright light has an imminent danger: blowing out the highlights. That’s why I will be very careful not to over-expose. I had my model standing in the tree shade, but depending on her position, the sun would shine on her blonde hair from time to time. Be careful not to cram it! Original image: 1/500s f2.2 ISO 100 with the Canon 135mm f2 L lens.

I first had developed the whole series as the second image:

if you have lightroom:

exposure +0,70

contrast +19

highlights -67

shadows +55

and a vignette darkening the corners.

I also added an extra +0,28 exposure on the face and breast area. (radial gradient)

After that I decided that I wanted to get some more warmth and glow to the images, so I went a step further (still LR)

I changed the white balance from as shot 5400/-2 to a slightly warmer 5847/-3

I pushed up the exposure to +1,05 stops.

This gave me a warmer tone, and a radiating model.

In photoshop I did two further things:

I added a sort of soft-focus filter to the image (layer copy with gaussian blurr on top of the originallayer, blending mode set to screen, with reduced opacity. Prevent the soft focus layer from covering the focus areas of your image – head, breast, hands – )

Add a combined unsharp mask/high pass sharpening layer to the ‘focus areas’.

Sharon – Reina Petita Belgica – Reina Intercontinental – Costa Rica

Sexy

beauty, location, Personal Pictures

Long legs, high heels.

Sharon came to me for a shoot for her ‘Miss Universal’ – edit: ‘Reina Intercontinental’ – election in Costa Rica.

She’s not new to me. I worked with her before, here, here and here.

We did several clothing outfits, one even more ‘missy’ than another, not really my style as you probably know by now, but I found this image rather sexy at least.

You can express your support for Sharon here: FB page

thank you for watching,

Ludwig

New – home – shoot location

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures

I’m happy to say that after having to quit ‘the mansion’ I finally have found a new ‘homebase’ for shooting. Totally different in character, but as much variation possible as the mansion. Not sure what to call it yet. This will be my main location for at least a couple of months. I already posted some images taken there, but there’s more to come.

A ‘standard’ available location is a good thing for the ease of mind, for the ease of organisation and the fine-tuning of techniques and setups.

It is however important to keep on working in different locations, to expand your portfolio, get some variation and push yourself to be creative. For that I would like to call on followers that if you have a location near my hometown (Ronse – B) that I can use, to please give me a sign. I probably will come over only in a while, but it is handy for me to have a basic list of possible locations for shoots. I can always pick another one if the moment doesn’t suit you.

This said, please enjoy this image from this summer: Hot summer days – the sequel

natural light in an extremely dark depot.

1/60s f2.8 ISO250 – Canon EF 100mm f2.8L Macro IS

thank you for watching

Ludwig

Da Castle shoot – analog

Analog, beauty

Some images from a while ago. Analog takes a little longer to process than digital. 🙂

Very hard circumstances for making pictures without a built-in light meter, with the light changing every minute. Sunny with scattered clouds. Luckily the film I use has a lot of ‘range’, so I could correct in scanning, when needed.

I enjoyed working in this castle environment very much. If any one of my followers out there owns his or her private castle, and I could use it for shoots, please shout. I will grant you my eternal gratitude and a free beer.

I think these are the last images from the ‘interim model’, I hereby want to thank her again for stepping up for this life-changing experience.

thank you my dear audience for reading this post. 😉

ludwig

Fine art nude – NSFW

beauty, erotic, Nude, Personal Pictures

From a recent shoot. I have made similar images in my – Nude Incognito – series, in a black studio and with the use of flash lights. This is in a naturally lit environment. I especially like how the body shape and pose fills the square format. Also the dense structure of the floor in contrast with the soft shiny structures of the skin are appealing to me. The model had just put on a body lotion, giving some extra shine to the skin.

I hope you like it. I did, as well as my model and her partner.

Canon 5D mark II with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG A.

1/40s. f3.2 ISO 200

come again soon.

Ludwig

An afternoon at Hotel Hancelot – Pauline.

beauty, Personal Pictures

I think you know Pauline by now. I love working with her. She’s nice, beautiful, she can be herself or she can put on a role, she’s punctual and joyful. I noticed I never published a color image from this shoot. It’s a shame, because they came out good in color too. Enjoy:

Images taken with Canon 5D mark II and Sigma 50 mm 1.4 (first image) and Canon 100 mm 2.8 Macro. – All available light.

thank you for visiting,

Ludwig

Ivana at the Mansion – Forgotten series of analog images – NSFW

beauty, Personal Pictures

When I have some more time on a photoshoot, I shoot some images on film too.

One of the rolls of film I’ve shot with Ivana never got published here. It’s a shame, since I think the images are worthwhile. I had been working hard to see the ‘real’ Ivana, not the model, read these posts to know all about it:

Part I

Part II

Part III

in this third part, I also shot some film images. A roll of TMax 400 film on Rolleiflex 75 mm f3.5 6×6 format.

happy viewing.

See you again soon

Ludwig

ANGRY – Natural light portrait – setup

beauty, people, personal tips & tricks, portrait

luckily this was only roleplay, she was not really angry with me, I would have feared for my life, if not certainly my camera gear. 😉

1/20s f2.8 ISO 400 – Canon EF 100mm f2.8 Macro L

setup:

long hallway with big windows on the left side, first part of the hallway, no windows to the right.

Model just behind the last window.

Big styrofoam board to the right side of the model, filling in shadow parts. (120x240cm – about 50×100″)

That’s it, simple as anything, and a styrofoam board costs a couple of euro’s.

I had to darken the background a little at the right side, there was some light spill at the end wall of the hallway.

after the angry part, we did some more friendly images too.

here I’m off to the left, so the right wall becomes visible and I don’t get completely black in the background.

below: 1/50 f1.6 ISO400 – Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG Art

Frontal again, showing very dimly lit ceiling windows, not giving any effect on the subject.

thank you for watching.

Ludwig

My life is for running

beauty, Personal Pictures

Natacha is into running, no, she loves running … up to 50 kms is ok she told me. I think I’d die.

Her body shows the training and exercise efforts.

I have tried to combine that with some sensuality, and strong personality.

All natural light, Canon 5D II and 50mm/100mm/17-40mm lenses.

thank you for watching, leave a comment if you like.

Ludwig

Sunburst – NSFW

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Single image post.

People who’ve seen my exhibition in Gavere (about 850 of you) have seen this image ‘real life’.

Because it relates so well with the current weather here in Belgium and Europe, … free for all.

Sunburst.

Canon 5D II with Canon 17-40mm f4.0

1/60s – f11 – ISO100 – 39mm

thank you for watching,

ludwig

Jenn – Lightroom developed – Step by step.

beauty, Lightroom, personal tips & tricks

Some of my former students asked me if I could try to find out about a particular developing effect she was after, she sent me some sample images and a bit of an explanation what she needed. I tried to figure out what could be done only with the use of Adobe Lightroom ®, I’m currently using version CC 2014. I looked for an interesting image in one of my earlier shoots and found one from this shoot: A very good morning – Jenn at house Adelaïde NSFW The image was rather dark exposed – blame on me. First things first: up with exposure + 1 stop. As I had seen in the sample images, the blacks were not really black anymore, and the highlights were really pale. I wanted to keep the background as dark as possible, so I changed general settings like this: Exp: +1 Highlights: +100 Shadows: -100 Blacks: -42 A little harsh maybe :p lots of contrast, but not really appealing to me. to get a more snappy image, and to start trying to find that ‘washed out’ look, I further changed: Clarity: +25 Saturation: -14 Then I added four local adjustment brushes, below are the respective masks 1 to 4: 1: The background: Exposure -0,8 stop, to get back to the original dark background (I could have done it the inverse way, and only have painted the model in stead of upping the exposure 1 stop overall.) 2: Skin to get it warmer and softer: Exposure +0,48, Clarity -70, Temp +7 3: Hair, and below eyebrows, to get more lively hair: Exposure 0,46, clarity 30 4: Pull over arm and leg, because I thought the arm was getting a lot of attention: Exposure -0,67 This is the resulting image after the local adjustments. As all of the images had non black blacks, and a slight blue’ish color cast, I used the tone curve for further adjustment, where I changed to linear curve, I upped the left lower point for RGB, and I separately upped the left lower point for blue. (The left lower point are your blacks, by upping them, you make your blacks very dark grays, by separately upping the blue some more, you ad a blue color cast, especially in the blacks) but I wanted some more, so I added a split toning effect in the shadow channel: Hue 244, saturation 15 after that, some vignetting, sharpening and a little correction here and there, the final image: and a small before and after image for your convenience: If you found this step by step developing instructions interesting, you might also like these posts: Kimberly before and after Developing beauty LR4 thank you for watching, I hope this has been inspiring to you.

ludwig

The Castle shoot – digital

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Nice environment, nice weather, nice model, …

first time in this place, and as I tend to not prepare so much for a shoot it is always a search for an approach. This place has tons of possibilities, …

Eline was worried about her figure, as a lot of women do. I’m happy that I have been able to surprise her with some eye-dropping images. What do you think?

All images Canon 5D II with sigma 50 mm f1.4 or Canon 135mm f2.0.

thank you for watching,

ludwig desmet

The Castle shoot – preview

Analog, beauty, Personal Pictures

A single image from this same shoot (interim model/the engine Room) – in the afternoon we went to this nice little castle up the hills in Ronse. We could freely use the exterior and surroundings of the castle. A great new location. judge for yourself:

Image taken with Rolleiflex 75 mm Tessar f3.5, on Kodak Tmax400

soon more on this blog

thank you for watching

ludwig