Lisa at The Mansion – Part II – Upstairs

beauty, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

The mansion has 4 levels: a ground level that is fully restored, and fully equipped with furniture, curtains, beautiful light fixtures etc. A first level that looks like someone is currently moving in whilst doing a rebuild, with plaster on the walls, cables hanging from the ceilings, water pipes on the floor, just simple light bulbs protruding from above where the sink is supposed to be etc. … Another level that I call the attic, with dark rooms just below the roof. No plastering at all, you can directly see the roof structure and the shingles on the roof. There is also an underground level, which I haven’t used yet. Its cold, dark, dirty and damp. Nothing nice really, oh and it has doors with bars, maybe those might lead to something.

I love using the dirty textured walls as a background in contrast to my models. Sometimes my models get a little bit textured too, by standing against the walls, but mostly they don’t care. Lisa certainly didn’t care too much.

A jeans short and a loose tank top. Lisa needed nothing else.

All natural light, 24 mm (first one only), 50mm and 100 mm. Canon 5D II

thank you for looking, share me your thoughts and come back again for part III really soon.

Ludwig

Lightroom 5 processing – before and after with Kimberly

beauty, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized

Hi there, as I promised before, welcome to this informal tutorial on digital development.

Not a tutorial pure sang, but a simple step by step example of a development of one of my images.

Just to make you aware that a good image from your camera can even get better with that little extra attention afterwards.

First a before and after screenshot from the image at hand.

I’ve uploaded them big, for your convenience. Click for full size.

Model: Kimberly D.

Photographer: Myself of course: Ludwig Desmet

LudwigDesmet_Kimberly beforeafter

A little evolutive comparison during development. First image is unmodified, straight from camera. First next step is general exposure and white balance corrections, second, the color balance corrections used for uplighting the model and darkening the greens, third is vignette and a graduated filter, to further darken the environment, thus uplighting the model again. Last step is local retouching and further local developing (darkening, lightening, contrast, clarity, …)

LudwigDesmet Kimberley processing

I currently use Lightroom 5.5, but I think this development can easily be translated to a Lightroom 4 version.

Now for a step by step analysis:

First of all I wanted the overal image to be slightly darker.

This is done with a -0.75 stops correction in exposure. It is always better to lower exposure in post than to have to crank it up. My metering might have been fooled due to the dark dress, the background foliage and dark grey concrete elements in the image, resulting in a slight over exposure. I also corrected white balance, from 4650°K to a slightly warmer 5313° K, no color shift correction needed (-2)

Because my model also darkened with the overall exposure correction, I played with the color luminance sliders to lighten her up again. These sliders allow for color based luminance (or hue or saturation) corrections, without the need for selecting parts of your image.

By getting up the red/orange/yellow sliders, I could bring the exposure level for the skin/dress back towards the original exposure levels from the un-edited image. I do not want to get all the way back, but just want to have my skin tones come back up again slightly. I have a warmer tone in the skin due to the white balance correction from the first step.

Next comes a rather blunt vignette effect, -48, Highlights priority, with the highlight protection set at 51. This gives a strong darkening vignette in the corners, but it keeps the highlights present trough the foliage.

I’ve also added an extra darkening gradient to the left, to further make my model stand out in the image. -0,69 exposure, gradually fading over the centre of the image. Here’s how it has been applied: Running from the left at -0,69, having half the correction on the line with the dot (approx -0,35 stops) to nil at the right line.

LudwigDesmet Kimberly gradient

next come the local corrections, first I remove some small skin imperfections, actually this model had very smooth skin, so no much work needed here, but I also tried to soften the armpit wrinkles a little. I do so with the spot removal tool. Here I chose to soften gradually with a healing correction in several steps.

LudwigDesmet Kimberly Spotremoval

And then for the final touch, I added quite some additional local adjustment brush corrections.

What I did:

Added exposure to the face and hair, eyes (separate brush) and earrings

Added contrast and clarity to the hair and earrings

Added clarity and saturation to the lips

Added highlights, and warmth (local white balance correction) to the sun-lit hairs.

Sculpted a little with make up like techniques (shadows and highlights applied in different facial zones), like darkening the lower cheeks, below the eye brow to the center, just below the chin line, uplighting the upper cheeks, below the eyebrow to the outside, the forehead, chin area, …

I added a little light in the black dress too.

I hope you’ve learnt something, especially interesting if you do work with Adobe Lightroom of course, but also if you would like to do some development in other applications of course.

And by the way, should you be interested, I do give Lightroom classes in Gent, at KISP.

Hope to see you soon, don’t hesitate leaving a comment.

Ludwig

Presentation

beauty, exhibition, photo gear, Uncategorized

very short notice, but not too late. Tomorrow evening I will be giving a live presentation about my beauty shoots.
How do I do things, which gear do I use, preparations, locations, models, the shoot, development etc.
Tomorrow night, in Ronse, Belgium. Just be there, or you’ll have missed it. 😉

Pauline M. at the Mansion

Uncategorized

Pauline is studying to be a drama artist. She also has some experience with photography. She contacted me trough a model website where I have some portfolio images. She’s originally from Liège, but residing in Brussels.

I loved working with her, she does not have the typical model figure, and although she was a bit shy at first she posed very easily and naturally, and that is mainly what I’m looking for in models.

We worked trough the afternoon, first at The Mansion, then at the Garden of Eden. I’m very happy to have some exquisite locations really nearby, as this gives me the possibility to combine as the day evolves, and eventually as the weather changes. I’m still thinking about finding some additional locations for extra variety and possibilities. Not an easy thing to do, but I’m working on it.

Pauline brought a friend for make-up, and my wife did her hair. She made me think of a classic film diva in some of the images.

I’ll post the images in two series, The Mansion first. The house has been decorated with new curtains lately, and I’m happily making use of them.

Gear list: Canon 5D II, Canon 100mm f2.8 macro IS L, Canon 24mm f1.4 L, Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG.

Hope you like the images, come back soon for Pauline at the Garden of Eden.

Livia at the Mansion

Uncategorized

Hi there,

although it has been a fairly gentle winter this winter, times in the mansion can be hard for models.

I had Livia visiting the mansion late december last year. Livia is that kind of quiet, silent, almost unnoticeable woman, from whom I’d never thought she’d ask if she could do a photoshoot with me.

I was very happy to be able to portray her. She got so cold I had to put her onto the radiator for about half an hour to defrost 😉

Anyway, really short day’s at that time limited shooting session duration, and we got about 2 hours to finish the shoot.

Livia did really well, with only very limited modeling experience, she posed in a very natural way. That is what I am mostly looking for. I like a sensual pose and a flattering environment, but mostly I will ask people to act as natural as possible in that particular pose. (not easy to do, I can tell 🙂 )

Hope you like the images except for image 4 and 5, all with Canon 85 mm f 1.8. All images natural light. I tend to get loosening from the idea that an image needs to be perfect technically, and more and more focus on the atmosphere and content of an image. Of course, there’s some technical correctness needed, but I believe that this style I’m working in also allows for a little ‘free interpretation of rules’.

Bye, hope to see you soon.

Oh, by the way, I have included new pages on this blog, containing an overview of earlier images posted. Portfolio pages in 4 different subjects. You can find them on top of the main page or by clicking here:

Beauty BW, Beauty color, Landscape, Architecture

don’t hesitate to leave your comment!

thank you, Ludwig

Nude Studio Setup – 1 light

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

Continuation of my series of ‘portfolio shoot images’ Behind the scene’s.

For this setup I used only one studio flash, with reflector.

In order to create a really small light bundle, you need to work with solid elements blocking the light.

For this I use some of those huge styrofoam boards (they can be bought in the build supply shops, they are used for insulation, crappy for this purpose, but very handy in studio) of 120x220x6 cm. I paint them black on one side, and around the edges. I made some simple stands from fibre wood panels to hold them upright.

They weigh virtually nothing and are easily stowed away.

here you can see one white side front, one back side front (I pushed exposure a bit here, because they are really nicely black):

So a very simple setup here:

one flashlight on the left, with standard reflector, two styrofoam panels, black side towards the flash (you don’t want light bouncing of the white side, don’t you?)

model standing right in the middle, a little further back. Because the reflector is a quite big light source, you’ll need to put your panels really close to eachother (2 cm apart for instance) and you’ll still have the light spreading out further away from the panels.

two images with this setup:

thank you for reading, see you soon for a new post.

Ludwig

My Nude (In)cognito project – NSFW

exhibition, Personal Pictures, projects, Uncategorized

hi,

My project nude (In)cognito is running to an end now. In about a month we will have a group exhibition with all portfolio projects from end module students in the photography classes at KISP.

I have photographed 11 women in a studio session, and there’s one to come. Overall I’m really happy with the outcome. I have had women from the age of 22 and women aged +50.

I have been charmed with their motivations and their fears, I have listened carefully to what they thought about posing nude, how they feel about showing their body to the outside world, and how the personal situation is playing a big role in their decision to take part in the project or not to do it. And I am even more convinced than before that we do not live in a free society. I would like to thank all the persons that have responded to my request. It has been quite a gift to receive so many reactions, I’m sure this project will not see its immediate end after the exhibit. There’s so many people out there to be photographed.

The date for the exhibit is set at sunday Jan 19th, and the exhibit will take part at CC Meulestede in Ghent.

I yet have to decide on the presentation of the images, the video and the book. I will certainly make a book for the exhibit to be able to show some more work. I will most certainly not be able to show enough pictures to have every model represented, so a book will give me the opportunity to have all ‘models’ presented at the exhibit.

My Nude (In)cognito project

Personal Pictures, projects, Uncategorized

Portfolioproject end module photography

The last part of the degree in photography at KISP exists in a portfolio project from each of the students. He/She needs to develop his/her own project, during the last 5 months of the training. This happens under supervision of an internal mentor (KISP-teacher) and an external mentor, free of choice. The final works will be presented in an exhibit open to the public, and judged by a panel of professionals in the field.

Vision

The sixties from the last century, and in particular the late sixties, are book-marked as the era of ‘sexual revolution’. Contraceptive medicine had led to a great self decisive power within the feminine part of the population, in the possibility to prevent pregnancy, and sexuality could be experienced a lot less restricted.

About 40 years from that date, we see a huge amount of pornographic material, freely available on the internet, a quantity still growing at an amazing speed, with new adult sites emerging every day.

At the same time we can experience a sexualisation of general media, and in particular in TV advertising, entering our homes every day. A woman looks slim and her body shows no signs of ageing, she is always available, expresses sexual lust, and is being exploited in this manner.

This message has gained a very high level of tolerance, and is rarely critiqued.

In very high contrast to this stands the reality of an everyday individual. When I, as a photographer, contact people for modelling in an artistic nude photo session, then their first concern is the possible reaction they will get from relatives, partners, employers or colleagues.

The individual freedom of being naked, and being able to express yourself in nude art, in a feeling of confidence is clearly not a general state of mind. The taboo about the personal body of each individual has clearly not disappeared, maybe even become stronger than in the late sixties.

Mission

Provide an answer to the still existing taboo about personal nudity, and carefully try to respond to the will of individuals to express nakedness, by photographing them in an artistic way, be it anonymous or recognisable, AND to give a place to their doubts, their feelings about nudity and their fears for the reactions from other people.

Goal

Photograph at least 10 individuals in an artistic nude photo session. The images can be anonymous or clearly identifiable, to the choice of the individual. From each session a selection will be withheld for possible publication/exhibit in the portfolio project. When I have enough candidates, each person will only have one image presented. When I have more than 10 candidates, it is possible that no image of a particular session will be used, the judgement for the final exhibit lies with the photographer.

Next to the exposed pictures, a separate panel will be composed, with a testimonial from each photographed individual, as well as from some people that have given testimony of their inability to pose nude. They will be joined with a portrait of the individual. The name used in conjunction with the images can be changed by each individual.

Practical matters

The shoots will take place in the studio of the photographer, and will take a minimum of two hours, preferably longer because it takes some time to familiarise, discuss eventual questions etcetera. Models can bring an accompanying person, or someone to do make-up or hair.

Sessions can be booked on wednesday afternoons, fridays or in the weekend. Dates to be discussed.

A contract will be presented, in which the individual passes the rights for publication to the photographer. The choices below are to be made by each individual.

… gives the right for publication for image numbers:

…………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. / …………. /

O for exhibitions -> this option must be ticked.

O for printed books/reproductions

O on website O blog O facebook-page* of the photographer (*if not against facebook rules)

O on websites/printed matters for promoting an exhibit or a book

O in specialized photo magazines

O with proper name (first name)

O under nickname: ……………………………………

Conditions

What should a model have/respond to:

A model must be at least 18 years old, and be able to prove this with a identity piece.

A model should be self confident and be fine with posing nude.

A model should be able to come to the studio at the agreed date.

A model will have to sign for abduction of image rights.

Reward

Endless gratitude, and unimaginable amount of fame.

Self realisation and being part of the real sexual revolution.

In exchange for posing, the model will receive the selected images in low resolution digital format.

Prints and (mounted) enlargements can be ordered at fair prices.

thank you so much for reading this presentation/call for models

any inquiries should be made at : ludwig -at- charlemagne-art.be

Ludwig Desmet – Charlemagne

U can find my work at:

www.charlemagne-art.be

ludwigdesmet.wordpress.com

I will soon post some images from the first sessions, so make sure to come again soon.

Salomé on a sunday morning

people, Personal Pictures, photo gear, Uncategorized

>Hi,

some weeks ago I did an impromptu shoot with Salomé.

Salomé is one of my nieces, and she needed some pictures for thank you cards.

She dropped in on a sunday morning and we had about half an hour for making some pictures.

Fortunately the weather was great, and since we have had so much rain these last 6 months, the green was GREEN!

I took my two main portrait lenses, 85mm and 135mm, but all these shots are with the Canon 135mm f2 L.

For me this is the best lens I have, in terms of image quality. It has plenty of contrast, even in strong backlit images, it is very sharp, from the maximum aperture on, and it has creamy soft bokeh.

Main advice in bright sun conditions: shoot with the sun in the back of your model. It will prevent your subject from peeping the eyes, and you get a beautiful hairlight (a bit strong I admit) for free.

Images have only slightly been enhanced in Lightroom. I have an import standard of +20 contrast +15 clarity, and I did nothing else.

The best of the pack (in my opinion 😉 )

See you soon for the Harley Davidson images (see my facebook page – Ludwig Desmet)

Take care, and come again soon,

Ludwig

That strange thing called NUDE

Uncategorized

Hi,

I have been shooting kids and landscapes and al kinds of other pretty things, and always got a lot of compliments on my work, from my immediate circle of friends, relatives and people who know me personally on any possible level. Comments mostly positive, things like ‘oh how beautiful’, or ‘is that a painting? It really seems like a painting, with all those colors and so’. Or after showing a series of images of a kid ‘Isn’t she cute, and you portrayed her so well, can you do this with my daughter as well (yes I can, but not for free, since shooting for free doesn’t pay my camera – but that’s a different topic I need to tackle some day soon)

Since I’ve started shooting beauty portraits with young women, wearing less than average clothing, I have remarked two things.

1. I’ve gotten a lot less comments trough my ‘personal connections’. They don’t spontaneously speak about my photography anymore, and certainly not about the beauty portraits. The rare people that do speak about them, have one common question: “is your wife ok with the kind of pictures you make these days” (they ask me, or they ask her, without me being present). As if I have become a danger for public behavior, and certainly a threatening factor for the well being of my marriage.

2. I’ve gotten a lot more visitors to my blog, yes, this blog. Going from an average of about 650 views per month, to an average of about 1800 views per month. This means that my images have gotten an additional attraction to a certain group of people. The evolution is very clear, since september 2012 I’ve published my first set of intimate beauty shots, and that is exactly the month my view count jumped up.

For a clear and straight answer to the question in number 1. , yes, she’s ok with the pictures I’m taking. We have had long conversations about them, and still have. She’s my first critic in making sure that the images I take, and the images I publish are tasteful and beautiful. I will probably evolve towards an even more ‘daring’ style of photography, with fine eroticism on my wish list, but that will not be without another number of close conversations between me and my wife.

I have recently had a short conversation with a photographer working in California.

http://theaveragejimblog.wordpress.com

He’s shooting a lot of natural beauty portraits, nudes, covered-up nudes, topless images of young women, in a style I like a lot. Uncluttered, natural images in a natural environment. There seems to be a big difference in attitude between The States and Europe. Apparently, he can make a living out of his shoots, with a lot of young women wanting to be a model, and going to an established photographer for their first portfolio images.

Here in Europe, people tend to try to get a photographer for free, since there’s a lot more offerings from amateur photographers wanting models, than models needing a photographer. This probably means ‘no luck for me either’. If they don’t contact a photographer, even better, they buy a DSLR, (or their boyfriend does) to make their own lookbook images. This being said, I’m looking for models for my personal projects. If you live somewhere near Belgium, and want your beauty portrait taken, I’ll make you a fine offer. Drop me a line, or send a message trough the contact form on this blog.

Now, further on, I recently did two more natural beauty shoots, but I’m still awaiting an agreement for publishing on some images. Here’s at least one:

Thank you for reading, come again soon!

ludwig

Jessika at the Mansion + snowshoot.

beauty, people, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Hi All,

some two weeks ago I had Jessika coming over to Ronse.

We had worked together for a shoot at Hallerbos, april last year, and she wanted to shoot again, in a different setting, with different clothing, etc. … Jessika didn’t feel totally comfortable about not wearing any make-up, and she didn’t like the first results of the shoot.

(women tend to be very very self-critical, if you asked me)

Anyway, I think we made some nice, moody shots at the Mansion, but then we got outside, and she put up some make-up 😀

It was during that week that we had a lot of snow here in Belgium, so we combined a shoot at the Mansion, with a wintershoot, on the same afternoon. I had timed quite well, so we got outside with the sun already very low, about an hour before sunset. I had a very nice backdrop this way. I only have one lens capable of doing this, without getting over-the-top flares anywhere in the image, and that’s my Canon 135mm f2. Although some images received some additional contrast in post, overall the images came out very well straight from camera. I hope you like them. No reflectors used this time, only natural light.

In one shot, I added some extra digital snow, to emphasize the cold character.

happy viewing, see you soon!

My Blog stats for 2012

Uncategorized

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 12,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 20 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thank you for following me, thank you for your comments, I hope to see you again in 2013!

As a bonus, pls take a look at this Galimberti-style image of a bridge just at the end of my street:

Ch.

Marcia studio shoot

people, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Marcia volunteered to be my model in this studio shoot.
She is unfamiliar with modeling work, so this was kinda’ new to her. She brought different clothing sets based on a small mood board I sent her to start with. It is a good thing to have a direction to work to. (I claim no credit for these images, this is just a selection of tumblr images.)

This was the narrowed down selection from the mood board, at least what direction we aimed at. Three different things, 1. is a three light setup, 2 is a single light setup (at least we reduced it to a single light setup) and 3 is also a single light setup.

Shots for number 1:
just some shots in the same tonalities as the moodboard shot. Don’t forget to click them for a bigger size!

Then Marcia started to feel a bit more comfortable and at ease, and we started doing some expressions, I made her untie her hair etc.

Sometimes I like to add some processing to create a different mood and atmosphere to the image. Just to show you what a quick edit can do:

All these images were shot with the same 3-light setup, two umbrella’s left and right behind the subject, pointing a little towards the camera, and a softbox just above Marcia’s head:

Then up to the second mood board image.
I wanted to recreate a window like shadow, with direct sun falling into it.
We have very limited gear in the school studio, so we had to ‘be creative’.
We used four large styrofoam reflector panels to create a window, and barn doors on the flash light. A 5th reflector panel just to the right of Marcia created some fill light at the shadow side. I had my assistant of the day (Gert) to hold a black light blocker next to the flash-head, because we got too much spill light into the studio otherwise.

Marcia loves sunglasses, so we used them. (I always please my models, or at least do what I can do to do so 😉 )

And for the results:

And then the number three from the moodboard.
(Actually we did this one second, and the sunglasses last, because we re-used the setup from 1, except without the umbrella flashes, so only the top softbox)
Marcia has too much hair to do something similar to the mood board, so we had to improvise. She did really well, she posed quite easily now, so we could try out different things quite quickly.

At last, don’t be afraid to do some post-processing. This one image I especially liked, and I processed it a bit like the mood board example, and then a second time I processed it to my likings. Look what difference this makes:

What have I learnt from this shoot:
You don’t have to be an experienced model to create great looking images, as long as both model and photographer feel comfortable in each others presence. Thank you Marcia for stepping forward on my request for a volunteer!
There’s a lot that can be done in only a short period of time, at least when you are a little bit prepared as to what are your targets. (mood board) This shoot took one and a half hour, from start of first setup back to a cleaned up studio room. Thanks again to my assistant of the day at Kisp, Gert.
Dare try some post-processing to change the mood of your images.

Next post will be a series of images I took from my wife Nathalie – EMOTIONS

come again soon,
Ludwig

Composition and light – AKA – the struggle for a good shot

Uncategorized

hi,

Yesterday I had evening classes photography. I am currently in the module about people and portrait photography, and we had the task to make some combined environmental+flash light shots from some of our colleagues in class.
We had a hard time finding a current output outdoors, schools apparently avoid these at all cost. We only had limited cable (30m) and no battery pack to power the monoblocks.

I just want to show you the process we’ve worked trough, in order to get what I call a good shot. (I’m not pretending being perfectly capable of producing the ultimately composed shot, … just trying my best in producing a decent image)

This is the spot we started working in. I just made this shot to see how well I could reduce ambient light by just closing the aperture. Shot at ISO 160, f18 and 1/200 sec. All shots with Canon 17-40 mm f4 and 5D mark II.

I decided to open up aperture a little, and lower the iso value. (lens performance is best at an aperture value of 11-16, in general) so for the next images I worked at ISO 100 and f14, 1/200 sec. We setup a monoblock at about 3 meters distance from the subject, and 5/6 full power (Bowens G500). A standard reflector completed the setup. As you can see, I’m aiming straight into the sun, and I get a little flare spot on his belly.

This image was ok for light, but a bit boring, and my subject seemed like very far away, so I closed in a little, and got a lower camera angle, to make my buddy Bart look more impressive. At the same time, Bart is covering the sun and I get rid of the flare.

Still a bit boring, so why not try jumping (with the basket goal in mind)

Bart wasn’t much into jumping yesterday evening, so we abandoned after a couple of shots. Let’s try getting a little closer.

Hmm, not bad, but not good either, the building in the back doesn’t say anything, and I get no depth in the image.

Now the line on the pavement adds a little perspective, but the building still isn’t of great value, let’s try a horizontal orientation.

Now that is what I call perspective and depth, although mu subject is a bit far, and not really standing out from the background. (in the mean time, we changed the position of the flash, and I have turned to f11 to compensate)
Time for some close-up work then. I also asked Bart to close his eyes till just before the shot, and then open them a bit wider, because we had rather bright environment light and he had ‘peeping eyes’.

And for the final shot:

Some shots during the break. Claire was sitting in front of me, enjoying a warm coffee. All shots with available light with 50 mm lens. First at f5 1/15 sec.

Although this shot is not bad, I’m wondering what she is holding in her hands, … Let’s try vertical, I opened up the aperture to make for a safer shutter speed: f2.5 at 1/25 sec.

Oh, she’s having coffee, right, but I would get claustrophobic if I stayed too long in such a tight frame, so I leaned back a little to re-do the horizontal shot.

That says a lot more to me, she’s having coffee, in a sort of bar, and there’s other people, … Notice how I moved my subject of centre, to get some dynamic in the image.

After the break, Claire wanted to do something with the red lockers. All images taken with Canon 135 mm f2 @ f6.3 and 1/160 sec.
We set up one flash again, bare light with standard reflector we measured f6.3 at the subjects distance. It looked very very boring to me, and to Walter also, obviously.

How about you Bart, wouldn’t you like more light in here?

So I decided it was time to get out the second flash and put it further away in the corridor, set at full power because quite far away from the subject.

Now how’s that for a change. The reflective floor and ceiling make for a nice light-pattern all over the image. Some reflections are blown-out, but I don’t mind.
Some further compositing work. This is my first shot of Walter only, posing with his gear like a real pro.

I thought the light was great, but the compo was cluttery. I missed the lockers here. I tried a horizontal shot.

This was better already, but I found it had too much disturbing elements at the right side. I moved a little to the right, and aimed a little to the left. I had seen that I had the rear flash straight into the camera, but I still wanted to give it a try.

The composition was good, but clearly the flashlight is pulling a lot of attention away from the subject, so I moved back just a little, keeping the same viewing angle as much as possible. Note the beautiful line starting in the lower left corner, leading the eye into the image. Here too the subject is off center, at about 1/3 from the right. This was my final in this setting:

We worked with 3 Cactus V5 transceivers, we had one monoblock set to cell (making it react to the first flashlight) and we could shoot with two photographers at the same time.

Thank you for reading, hope you found some interesting tips here.

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.

Hope you like them too!

Ludwig

Happy 2012!

Uncategorized

I wish all my fellow photographers, my followers and regular and occasional visitors fine Christmas holidays and an excellent 2012!

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.