people

the people selection of my personal pictures

Hallerbos shoot – BTS

landscapes, people, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

A 10 minutes behind the scenes video from our shoot in Hallerbos.
Some parts are english spoken, in-video conversations are mainly dutch, without subtitles, but nevertheless great to look at. 😉

thanks to Martine and Raf for filming

Enjoy!

Hallerbos part 1

landscapes, people, Personal Pictures

I did a shoot last Sunday in Hallerbos, with models Jessika and Sari. I’ll show you some of the images of the shoot with Jessika.
We had a great time, and we got some great pictures as a result. My first goal was making some composed panoramic images. I shot a lot of poses of Jessika, and then some images left and right of her. I picked out some nice poses to compose a wider final image. The largest pano’s are about 100 Mpix in size, large enough for a very wide print 😉
It was quite a challenge to picture her in the middle of the flowers, because you are actually not allowed entering the flower beds. We worked at some path crossings to achieve these results.
I am currently making a BTS video that shows a little more of the day. Make sure to come and check this page again soon!

After the wedding dress shoot, Jessika tried to get warm again (12°C outside), and then she changed for a nice ‘roman style’ blue dress, almost matching the colors of the Hyacinths -bluebells-. She also brought a kind of an antique bird cage. We shot for another 45 minutes, and at the very end of the shoot, we experimented a little with off camera flash. One single Canon flash, triggered with Cactus V5 transmitter. I had an assistant with me, and she handheld the flash. This allowed for quick changes in position and distance, and very much liked the results. I’m especially fond of the last image, I think it got a sense of drama in it.

Don’t forget to click them to view a larger version.
thank you for reading, come again soon!
Ludwig.

Free shoot results

people, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Hi, 

some weeks ago I offered a free shoot to my FB and other followers (FB followers are more nearby than my blog followers) I wanted to show you some results. Berlinda won the free shoot, and she received her pictures already.

– she was very pleased –

So I asked her if I could post some images of her daughter, a real natural poser and fun to work with.

Here they come: All done with natural light and one reflector. 50mm and 85mm lens.ImageImage

 

Hope you like them too!

Ludwig

 

Lynn Studio shoot

people, Personal Pictures, photo gear

I wanted to share some pictures with you from my latest school work. Yes, I still follow classes in Photography. I’m currently in the people/portrait class, and the first studio shoot was to be done with one flashlight. We could use whatever modifiers we wanted, and we had to work towards a chosen sample image.

I had chosen this image as my goal for this assignment: I don’t know the photographer of this image, if someone knows, pls. let me know so I can credit the image.

I knew that it was going to be a fairly hard thing to get, this soft light coming from everywhere. I was pretty sure that I needed indirect light, so I chose for two huge reflector panels (Polystyrene boards, 1.20m wide at 2m heigh). I already had left the idea of lighting the background as in my sample image.
I had a perfect model for this picture, Lynn. She is a hairdresser, and specializing for make-up-artist, and she prepared herself the best she could, based on this example picture.
This is my setup:

I have been working with my 85 mm 1.8 in order to be able to just hide behind the reflector. Otherwise I had too much flare from the lightsource.

these are some results with this setup:


After that we tried a second alternative, the softbox, and one reflector to the left of my model. I experimented a bit with different positions for shooting, and different poses.

Result was quite satisfactory, so we decided to do a completely different setup, just for fun.
I wanted a very localized light, and I had no snoot available, so a gridded flash with barndoors did the trick.
I turned these images into BW because they made me think of these movie stars, longing for the hero to come back home.

Second half of the evening, we didn’t have the studio available anymore, so we did some freestyling in the hallway after that, with a reportage flash off-camera, combined with my Tri-Grip silver/white reflector. These are taken with the 135mm f2.

Hope you liked reading, feel free to comment!

Disaster struck!

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,

I dropped my camera to the floor last week and my CF card broke.

Luckily enough my camera seems to be fine (Kudos to the magnesium body of the 5D II, only some exterior body-coating chipped off). So no reason for not posting anymore, then what has been the reason?
Work mainly. I have been overly demanded this last week, with finishing up my latest big assignment. I made about 40 minutes of 3D animation for a multimedia exhibition about the birthday anniversary of Mercator, 500 years ago. pls check out the link: www.mercatordigitaal.be for more info. I really had no energy left for photography, unfortunately. This should get better in the next few days, as I’m finishing the final touches on the last animation. So pictures will soon find their way to my blog again. I will take up the 85/85 project where I abandoned, and just continue the days to go.

Just wanted to share you this one. A homework from photography classes: take a portrait of your neighbor! And sorry, no this has nothing to do with the title of this post.

thank you for your patience, see you soon!
Ludwig

low light model shots

people, Personal Pictures

Did a shoot tuesday afternoon in Ghent, with model Annelies.
We got so cold during the shoot that we decided to go for a coffee late in the afternoon. Good moment to test my new 50mm 1.4. Very little light, not too much place for moving around. These are the results (heavily tweaked in LR I admit), think I’m gonna love my new lens.





All images wide open at f 1.4, 1/30th of a second, ISO 640.

Sanne modelshoot

people, Personal Pictures

Sanne is a model describing herself as a ‘Plus model’, this means, not fitting into the ‘ideal size’ category.

We had a fun shoot last week after someone else cancelled on this superb location. Sanne immediately jumped in to take this opportunity! Please enjoy these pictures. Click for bigger images!




The shoot was shot with 85mm, 135mm and wide angle 17-40 (last image). We had a large reflector and an off camera flash, used trough umbrella. Images were shot at ISO 500 – ISO 800 on Canon 5D II.

struggle for a portrait

people, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

Hi,
I’m at number 15, people who have come at my studio to pose for the professions project. All people I have photographed are un-easy with posing, and it has been a challenge to make them feel comfortable enough to get a good portrait and a nice depiction of their professional occupation.
Last I had a directors assistant and I would like to show you a bit of the shoot in evolution. I always ask people to bring something related to their job, and to be creative in what they bring (otherwise everybody brings a computer nowadays). She had brought a small calculator and a cellphone, because she does a lot of pricing calculations and she is on the phone half of her working time.

First of all I do a shot to verify my light setup, a quick close portrait will do to check on the detail in the highlights and the shadows.

First we tried with the calculator and a portable home phone I have here at hand. Phone in left hand, phone in right hand, didn’t work out to my feeling.

Ok then, let’s try only the calculator, maybe we’re going to get somewhere, … duhhhh, nope, nothing ‘directors assistant’ alike.

Maybe when we use only the phone, the pose will be less ‘forced’ and more natural, try putting a hand on your hip, nice, but not so ‘verymuchbusywithalotofthingsatthesametime’. This looks more like a well dressed woman calling her friend.

Now what do you really do in your job, I asked Ellen, …
Well, I’m often occupied with a lot of papers, trying to fix a date for an appointment in my bosses agenda, whilst running from here to there, …
Oh, okay, let’s find you some papers, an agenda, a pen, and hold that calculator and phone while I go find what we need.
I gave her some invoices strolling on my desk (she gave them back after the shoot 🙁 an agenda, a pen, …) and I quickly grabbed my camera.
While she was struggling to get all those things comfortably in her hands, I took a shot, MY SHOT! We did some less panic’y shots for her too, but I had my shot! The directors assistant, getting thrown ten things at the same time to her head, and trying to deal with all of them.

I have no proper background system yet, so I need to do some retouching on the background, painting some areas black, next I do some local adjustments for some extra exposure to the hands, the shadow side of the face, the shadow side of the dress, I add some more exposure to the orange tones and that’s it for my final image.

After that, I took a picture of Ellen and her husband Bart, as a bonus, because I made her work so hard. Thank you Ellen, thank you Bart!

more professions – light setup

people, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, photo gear, Tips and Tricks

And my project on profession portraits goes on.
I have quite some people spontaneously offering to pose for my series of professions. A classical portrait with a – small/not so small – glimpse of the job they do.
Below, you’ll see the library assistant, the plumber, the health coach and the actuaris. For you to find out who’s who, can’t be too hard I guess. – click on the images to view larger if you have difficulties finding out –

for my fellow photography enthusiasts, I’ll include a more detailed light setup, which is actually very simple:

1. I have a black cloth hanging up in the back of the room 3 to 4 meter behind my subject.
2. I have a reportage flash (Canon 580 EXII) in a 70×70 cm softbox from Lastolite on the right of my subject, which is my only light source. It is set at 1/4 +0.7 power and very close to the subject (maybe half a meter). I put it so close because this allows me to lit only my subject, and have the background almost black, thus reducing the post-processing. it is at the subjects head hight, slightly aiming down.
3. I have my large Lastolite tri-grip on the left side, on the ground + my diy reflector on a small stand, I had to use this extra reflector, because otherwise I don’t get enough light on the shadowside, and I recon my own reflector is just a bit more reflective than the trigrip, which is larger but softer.
4. I’m at about 3,5 meters distance from my subject, at about hip-height, to make my subject seem larger and fiercer, more ‘standing out’ I use my 85 mm 1.8 lens, at f8 on a full frame camera, to get a decent sharpness overall.
5. I have different subjects 🙂 They are all uncomfortable with posing, believe me! I ask them to turn their body slightly towards the main light, looking at me. Then we do about 15-25 shots, until I think we have a good shot, representing both the personality and a good pose.

The images are taken in colour, as raw files, and treated in LR afterwards. I use the standard BW settings, but have some minor local corrections with adding or removing exposure. I then remove the unwanted parts in the image (my background is not large enough for this distance, so I need to remove some ceiling that is not black, sometimes I need to move a small part of the reflector on the left.

I hope you like the pictures, if you are willing to pose for me, please give me a sign trough email or by reacting to this post. In return, you’ll get the chosen image in high resolution, free for personal use.
If you have any questions about the setup, ask it.

project professions

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,
I started a project about professions. It initially started as a small project, but it seems to get bigger than I expected. Basically I make portraits of people I know more or less, with a slight or clear hint to their profession. I want the viewer to first see a portrait, then what his profession is about. I invite volunteers to pose for me, think about what they could bring as a ‘job link’ and try to make a good shot. I do not want them to bring uniforms or special clothing, and the object must be small.
This is what I mean:


I deliberately choose the same setup for all the images, to enhance the ‘series’ effect. Setup is one 70 cm softbox on the right of the model just outside the image frame, my diy reflector on the left of the model also just next to the person posing. All images with 85 mm 1.8 @ f8.

shoot Esmée

people, Personal Pictures

About 6 weeks ago I was asked by the mama of Esmée if I could do a shoot with her. We had to re-schedule two times, first because Esmée got ill, second because Esmée fell on her lip and got a big blue bruise. Two weeks ago we managed to get Esmée in good shape for her first photoshoot. My youngest model to date, but one of a kind. We worked together for about two hours, and she loved it, mam and dad too 😀

For light setup I mainly worked with available light and my diy reflector panel and later in the evening a Lastolite 70 cm softbox with my Canon EX580 flash. My two preferred lenses for this kind of work are the 85 mm and the 135 mm, all shots done with these two lenses.

please enjoy a small selection of the afternoon. Click images to view larger version.









If you liked these images, you might consider subscribing to my blog 😀

Adinda model – post processing

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,
I have done a short session with model Adinda, and wanted to show you some postprocessing examples of the images that came out.
With the transition to digital photography, digital postprocessing took the role of the earlier darkroom techniques, plus they allow for a lot more creative impact from the photographers side.
The images from Adinda were good, but nothing really special. I took the liberty to experiment in Lightroom, to make them into something more spicey. RAW files let you edit the original exposure data to a great extend, without too much quality loss.
I changed the white balance to a cooler image, with green tinting added in the white balance settings. The exposure went up about 1,5 stops, then I pushed the blacks to keep the contrast. Some minor adjustments to vibrance, contrast and brightness and this is the result.
For comparison, I also show the original files. For you to decide what you like the best.

click for bigger size!

ludwig


Model Sharon – herfst

people, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

In an attempt to get warm after the interior shoot (posing in lingerie in a non-heated building these days is not really cosy and comfortable) we got into the car with the heater on max. and drove to muziekbos, Ronse. There we did these exterior shoots. some different clothing sets, and after a while we got lucky and grabbed some sun-rays. Sharon got cold again at the end. 🙁

first set of three is done with my self made reflector, all the others are available light only. Oh, and the entire shoot was shot with Canon 85 mm 1.8. A very good lens for this purpose, and not really expensive.

Please enjoy this selection. Click to see full size.





Model Sharon

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,

two weeks ago I did a shoot with Sharon Vandenabeele, from Ronse. She is very much into modeling, and we worked trough a whole series of settings, clothes and locations. Fun working with a model who knows about posing like she did. A selection of the things we did inside, I’ll post the images we did outside in a while. Hope you like them.

Click image to view full size.







Model Kim

people, Personal Pictures

It is always nice to have a good looking model in front of your lens. When ‘en plus’ she is very easy posing, natural, feeling comfortable and joyful, a photographer couldn’t wish for more. I’m happy to present you some images from a shoot last sunday morning. We had planned an outdoor shoot, but the weather didn’t join in, so we decided otherwise. This is what I would call ‘A short portfolio session’. We worked for about one hour and a half, and only in one location.

Please enjoy, click images to view full size.

A short make-up session, …

… and ready to go.












HONG KONG Invest

people, Personal Pictures

hi,
I was asked by StudioFX to assist media coverage for the Hong Kong Invest conference, that took place in Luxemburg city, last thursday. I had expected a dull and boring meeting. None the less!
The first speaker, Julia Leung started her speech with the simple yet unavoidable fact that since the delegation got to Europe at the beginning of the week, Europe had lost 2 of its prime ministers. Touché 😉

A short overview of the lunch event:

We had an excellent venue location in the Hotel Royal:

A good bunch of expensive and cute looking people:

Some first class food and drinks:

Eloquent speakers about difficult financial matters:

A rather attentive audience, some moments of self reflection and prayer.

Some really tough questions that needed instant answers.

Some rather unfriendly, but mostly friendly informal meetings.

model Bjorn

people, Personal Pictures

I went for a shoot in the deserted school building in Ronse last week. I had done some urban shoots there before, so I know my way around. I had an arrangement with Bjorn for a shoot. He is thinking about becoming a model and asked me to help build a portfolio. We did some nice stuff with this vandalized building, some flash experiments etc. … We didn’t steal anything, didn’t break anything, but had to scrape glass fragments from our shoe soles afterwards. Welcome to what used to be a nursery-school.
Some images have been re-colored in Lightroom, just for some extra atmosphere and variation in the portfolio, hope you like it.

Gear used: Canon 5DII, 50mm, 85mm, 17-40mm, 135mm, flash with or without umbrella.

There’s more to come, don’t forget subscribing to my blog if you like my posts!

Click to view full size.










Model Mien

people, Personal Pictures

Did a shoot some weeks ago, in the last late summer days of september. We tried some different things, had some fun and returned with some beautiful pictures. Unfortunately the model is very unsure of herself, so she didn’t allow me to publish a lot of pictures. Here a selection. Hope you like them.

On some images you can clearly see the effect of the self made reflector.

ludwig

click images for bigger picture!





Serafijn Ronse

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,
on the first of september, I was invited to take some photographs in a newly founded primary school, Serafijn in Ronse.
I had a pleasant morning, photographing moms, dads and kids. The kids were feeling a bit unsure, the moms also I guess. They managed to build a chicken-shed on that very first day, kids loved to put some paint on it!
We didn’t want to publish pictures without the parents consent, so it has taken a while. Some of my favourites, I hope you like them too.

click to view full size!