La dame du château – preview

beauty, location, Nude, Personal Pictures, portrait

a first one from a series of analog images I did with Ava

too hot outside, we fled for the cool interior of the chateau. The atmosphere was great, the castle was quiet, Ava was feeling comfortable. Some of the main ingredients for a great shoot. The models, although more accustomed to getting undressed than any other person, still prefer a quiet, unbothered atmosphere. There’s nothing more disturbing than people hopping in at unforeseen moments. A kind of understanding builds between model and photographer (and eventually assistants, make up artists etc …) and this makes intimate pictures possible. Thank you Ava for your confidence, and for being my model during this shoot.

• La dame du château •

model and make up: Ava Lacour

Hair and assistance: Nathalie

Shot on location in Tournai, Belgium

Rolleiflex 3,5 TLR on Kodak T-Max400 film.

all images © ludwig desmet

thank you for watching.

DUO

Analog, beauty, people, Personal Pictures, portrait

you’ve seen one of this series before here: envy

a new experience,working with two models at the same time,

I shot digital and analog for this series, all available light at the former Pinehouse interior shop in Ronse.

• Laura and Pauline – Duo •

analog:

first one not entirely sharp, this means not enough dept of field due to low light (large aperture needed) and medium format negatives (gives a shallower DOF than 35mm film).

I especially like the last image, don’t know why.

thanks for looking,

ludwig

Laura – digital

beauty, Personal Pictures, portrait

• Laura •

LudwigDesmet_LM-1991

All images shot with Canon 5Ds and Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A

(except last one, Canon 135mm f2 L)

thank you for watching,

ludwig

Way too hot today

Analog, beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures, portrait

a small preview of the shoot I did with Erika Albonetti in Brussels.

model and make up: Erika Albonetti

assistance: Nathalie Renard

photography: Ludwig Desmet

• way too hot today •

Erika is a wonderful model to work with, you’ll see more of her appear here in the weeks to come. Photographed with Rolleiflex 3,5 on Kodak T-Max100 film.

location: Kunstberg/Mont des Arts – Brussels.

Laura in my backyard

Analog, beauty, Personal Pictures, portrait

shot at home, in my garden

• Laura on film •

Rolleiflex 3,5 on Ilford HP5 Plus

I love the quality of film, I love how the unsharp areas get their own feel, but I should have avoided the wire in the background in image 2 and 3, … it gives a disturbing pattern in my opinion.

Hair: Nathalie

make up: Hanna E.B.

Model: Laura – assisted by Falco in the first image 😉 she was somehow tense during the shoot, but she did great. Thank you Laura!

thank you for watching,

ludwig

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.

Thank you for reading,

ludwig

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’ 🙂 .

thank you for watching.

ludwig

Yashica 635 …

beauty, Personal Pictures, portrait

… and a very nice photographer.

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

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

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.

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

Portrait – Mysterious

Personal Pictures, portrait

I’m generally very careful about the integrity and privacy of my models. Usually when I shoot artistic work with a model I contact, I have my models sign an image release contract. This enables me to be able to publish the images on my personal web and marketing platforms (such as this blog), exhibits and book publishing. Mostly they still get the possibility to refuse image X or Y from a selection, if they think they are not beneficial to their personal image. Also they have the option to be published under a different ‘model name’ than their real name.

For people contacting me for a shoot, things are a bit different, they pay me for my work, and although I automatically get the image rights for the pictures I take, I do not have the ‘right of publication’ of them, without explicit consent of the person in the portrait. This is not contract bound, but on an ‘allow or refuse’ free decision of the client.

I made a series of portraits of this lady here. If I asked here, would it be ok if I post an image of this series on my blog, she said ‘no problem, as long as it stays anonymous’.

So here she comes: ‘The mysterious lady from the Brussels region’

Canon 5D mark II, Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG A, 1/80 s – f1.4 – ISO 400

thank you for reading

ludwig