The skippers wife – Lazy morning

location, Nude

This is a selection of images I made in the master bedroom of a skippers barge. It was cramped, I had literally no place around the bed, it was dark, it was everything you fear for as a photographer, but it was nicely decorated with authentic elements, it was cosy and heated and I had a very willing model. (Sahri Nimi) As you might have noticed before, I love working with light, and I prefer too little light over too much light, how strange it may sound.Enjoy this wake-up moment, the skipper is having a beer and the lady of the house … errr … boat is enjoying a lazy morning.

enjoyed it, pls subscribe to my mailing list by clicking the triangle on the bottom of each page and fill in your email address. As an apprentice photographer you might be curious about my settings: I use a full frame Canon R5 camera, Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8 and ISO 1000. Shutter speeds between 1/50th of a second and 1/250th. If that is of interest to you, you might also want to take a look at my Patreon page where you’ll find a full behind the scenes video of this session there.

When I look back I suddenly realize that all these images (and a lot more, I admit) have been taken within one hour of time. … Efficiency 😉

Another lazy Sunday morning – self induced posing

beauty, location, Nude, people, Uncategorized

As you might have seen I hosted two private ‘available light art-nude’ workshops in July. I had rented a flat in the historical centre of Ghent for a couple of days and I had two different models coming in. My second day participant wanted to find out how he could enhance his story telling abilities trough images. I had Violaine as a model (currently also on the front page of my website) and one of the sets we did was the ‘lazy Sunday morning’ set, in which I had Violaine improvise and pose without instructions, I had done this before with models I worked with multiple times, and I knew these images prove to be very genuine and ‘real’ looking. The idea behind it is that when you simply observe your model during her daily routines, you’ll get your story without having to invent one. I was not sure how Violaine would (re)act, but she wonderfully expressed her ‘lazy morning feeling’ over the course of about half an hour, without me or the participants’ need for intervention in the form of posing instructions or imposing our ideas. I had my participant move freely about the bed, and took the opportunity to grab a series of images from different angles at the same time. I think it was a very good experience for both participant and model, and I think the images are great.

The images below are of course a selection of the shots made during this set, and selected to convey the idea we were after, but they all came naturally thanks to Violaine’s non posing qualities.

Please scroll down to the end for this weeks ‘specialty’ 😉

Attention please!

Now for the specialty of this week, from next month on, I’ll offer one free photo session every month* to you, my audience.
• The nature of the session (portrait, fashion, glamour, nude …) will be your choice entirely.
• These sessions will be either studio or outdoor sessions, digital or film, to my choice.
• The first session will be scheduled on Wednesday afternoon September 1st, and then every month after that on the first Wednesday of the month. Count for two hours, always in the afternoon as I eventually want to be able to shoot with available light.
• If you want to participate in a free session, send me an email at ludwig-at-ludwigdesmet-dot-com right away. First come first serve. Your subject line should read ‘free photo session’.
• Don’t be shy, you don’t have to be a model, you can bring a buddy if you’d like, and I’ll make sure you get some wonderful souvenirs, for free!
• Open for women and men, but only for adults.

*The session will result in a uncertain number of images, digitally delivered in a watermarked version, available for purchase if you’d like that.

the treasurer

beauty, Personal Pictures

Sorry if you have been trying to reach this site and blog in the last 24 hours, it has been down due to a PhP update on the host’s side, and I am by far not a web-tech-geek, so it took me a moment to figure out what happened, and to fix things accordingly.

to compensate, a single image post.

I had this first collaboration with Emily two weeks ago, and we made some nice images. We worked in the studio first, to continue after that on the local city-square, where there was this fair going on. I shot two rolls of film on the Yashica 635. A first glimpse at the developed films shows that either there is something wrong with the film transport mechanism, either I have not paid attention and unintentionally double exposed some of the frames. To be continued.

• The treasurer •

thanks for watching, please come again soon.

Ludwig

the great-great-granddaughter

beauty, erotic, location, Nude

I found another castle lady willing to pose nude for me in her residence:

shot in a castle in Belgium

• The great-great-granddaughter •

1/13 sec. f/5.0 at ISO400

Canon 5Ds with Canon TS-E24mm f/3.5 L II tilt-shift lens

longings behind frosted glass

beauty, location, Personal Pictures, portrait

For a little late 20’s movie drama 😉

Model and styling: Rachel Roose

Props and light: one single square softbox and decorated glass door.

thank you for watching,

ludwig

Charleston, for something a little different

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

it is always good to see that models bring their own ideas and clothing along on a shoot.

Next to being a source of variation and new ideas, it can also be a challenge do make something work that was not really in your mind-set when you started the shoot. We had shot early that afternoon in ‘the orphanage’, a huge former orphanage I guess, now rented as guesthouse for large groups. The weather was very dull and grey, and besides that it was raining and cold. Not really a nice environment to be in as a model. Rachel also brought some ‘Charleston inspired’ clothing and accessories, and we tried them out in my own home space. As there was very little light, and I wanted to create an evening atmosphere, I switched on the ambient lights in the hallway and staircase. These lights being very dim and not really at an ideal height for lighting a model. I rather not use flashes as they make the setup cumbersome and slow, but here I could not do otherwise, so I also installed two monobloc studioflashes. You clearly see the effect of one light (right of the model – 80cm octa) the other one is left of me, (60×60 softbox) in the room next to the hall way (there’s a triple entry door with glass inserts that filters the light softly into the hallway). The flashes are both at low power settings since I still wanted to use a rather wide aperture, for less depth of field. there’s a light setup at the bottom of this post.

the image is shot at 1/125s f2.0 ISO200. Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm Art. By using flashes I managed to dim the daylight even further, to an acceptable level that just keeps a small reminder of the structures in the window framework at the end of the hallway.

A big thank you to Rachel, for being my model on this day, and to Nathalie, my lovely assistant.

light setup:

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

Now was it the twenties, or thirties ?

Analog, beauty, Personal Pictures

the first of July I had two models coming over. A new experience to me, having to concentrate on several things at a time, and not much time to come up with ideas during wardrobe changes or pauses, there’s always another model waiting. We worked in a former furniture store. There have been final sales for a couple of months, so most places are rather empty. There are however a lot of different rooms and spaces, and a lot of different lighting situations, that’s what I like about a location like this. I had my lovely assistant doing hair and wardrobe assistance with the models, and she also keeps an eye on little details during the shoot.

I shot both Pauline and Laura apart as well as together. more to come. Pauline is a long time favourite, and she brought a lot of her friends to me in these last couple of years. Laura is one of them, you’ll meet her in my next post.

• Pauline •

shot with Rolleiflex 3.5 TLR on Kodak T-Max 400 film.

this film is a little grainier than the Kodak T-Max 100, but for interior work you have to get a faster film than the 100 I mostly use. All images available light only.

Thank you Pauline, for being my model

Hair: Nathalie

Make up: Hanna E.B.

A coupe with Corry – Happy Xmas

Analog, beauty, location

My first 100% analog photoshoot. Shot with my Rolleiflex 3.5 TLR camera, on Kodak T-Max 400 film.

My model had taken the initiative to look for great clothing and accessories that fitted them well. Next to first time only analog, also first time with a model in a crowded place. Ik kind of enjoyed the public interaction.

I hope you like the images, thank you for watching, thank you Corry for being my enthusiast model on this drizzling day. Thank you Nathalie for the hairdo, thank you Hanna for the make up.

please come again soon, for more images with this and other analog camera’s

Wedding Dress – Nice and Naughty

beauty, Personal Pictures

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

The Engine Room

beauty, Personal Pictures

A single image post today, Enjoy. The Engine Room used to be the most prestigious part of the textile factory. It was the place where visitors, customers could see the wealth of the company. Complete with glass in lead windows, tiled arches and so on. …

It was the place where pressurised vapour was created with a steam engine, providing both heat and mechanical power. due to the fact that this room is unaccessible from the ground floor, it has remained unused since the removal of the engine.

Canon 5D II with Canon EF 24mm f1.4 II L. This image reminds me that some time ago in a digital publication (EOSzine) I have urged the wish to combine model photography with my earlier subjects of urban and landscape photography. I’m getting nearer. 😉 Taken on tripod, multiple exposure blend (1/125 s. of a second at f4.5 for the model and the interior, 1/1000 s.at f4.5 for the windows).

Thank you for watching, and thank you Eline, for being my model.

ludwig

Clair-Obscur, or playing with light

beauty, people, Tips and Tricks

When I met Pauline at a hotel room in Ghent, the sun was shining brightly. This led to a difficult light situation, with very high contrasts in the room. (Contrast ratio 10/1 sunlit: 1/500s f2.0 ISO100 – shadow: 1/50s f2.0 ISO100) You either have to stay out of direct sunlight, or be very careful working into it. The key here is to make sure that your exposures are good for the sunlit areas, and certainly not overexposed. This can be done by spot metering the lit area’s and fixing your exposure to that metering. This gives you dramatic contrasts, and a perfect light situation for the ‘hide and reveal’ kind of images. The situation became even more tricky later on, as thick clouds began to block the light more often than not. All images with Canon 5D II and Sigma 50 mm f1.4 Art.

I loved working with Pauline, she’s full of character, she has confidence in me as a photographer, and she’s willing to play with the camera. Of course her drama lessons add a lot to that.

see you soon for some analog images from this same shoot. I shot two rolls of T-Max 400 film that same afternoon.

Ludwig

Digital publication – NIF Magazine

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

a couple of weeks ago my work got published as an exclusive feature on NIF Magazine.

NIF (Nude Is Fashion) Magazine is an online platform for promotion of the nude as a fashion statement. They do so by promoting art-nude and fashion nude photographers on their website.

I thought that ‘Tatjana at Sabine’s house’ was a series that fitted well this description.

look for yourself:

link here

Emilie at Hotel Remington – NSFW

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

It has been a while since I first started thinking about how to define ‘fine erotica’ and what can be described as being erotic, and I still am not really sure how to describe it. I think it must be a mix of State of mind, sexual attraction, visual appeal and a lot of fantasy about the promise of an intimate relationships. For me erotica is not directly linked to nude, and nude is not per definition erotic. I think there’s a lot of nudity available on the internet that has little or no erotic effect, rather the contrary. And there are some (harder to find) very erotic, non nude pictures out there as well.

As a photographer it is not easy to find and keep that very thin border between ‘just another picture of a beautiful woman’ – fine erotica – ‘just plain vulgar’. And that is just what I’m trying to achieve in some of my photo shoots.

I think I have the necessary technical knowledge now, but there’s a lot more needed.

One of those things needed is a willing model, understanding your ideas and showing enough confidence to let you execute them. Not easily done these days, where all things including nudity, erotica and sexual arousal are hidden far away behind closed bedroom doors.

It will be a long search, and I feel I only have just started out.

This shoot was done with help of Audrey from Hotel Remington in Ronse, thank you Audrey, for keeping a room for us that day. Clicking on the name-link will take you to the website of this nice, charming hotel.

Emilie was ready. She understood the things I wanted her to evoke, and she did it. Thank you so much Emilie, for your confidence, your trust and the beautiful results we made together.

Emilie is not really sure about revealing herself to the world as being a nude model, so we agreed to show only ‘non recognizable images on this blog’. I hope you understand, and I hope you can enjoy these pictures.

Lisa at The Mansion – Part III – Lingerie

beauty, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

I have a good relationship with the people behind the Belgian ‘passion shops’ called Tutti Passi.

They provide me with lingerie and accessories, I grant them the use of some of my images. Make sure to visit their website to see what they have available. Have fun 😉

Just one word about natural light photography and why I prefer working this way.

The idea of using natural (also called ‘available light’) light is double for me.

1. It allows me to work quickly and without the fuzz of getting my gear just right for every room I work in, every different position I put my model in, … Getting this light just right, and then another light, and then a reflector, and then I need some more extension cable …

Working quickly allows me to direct my model in all kinds of poses, make her take different positions within a room, if I don’t like the light I can switch to another room, so she tends to forget it’s all about posing, and I get more natural, relaxed poses AND I get to make a lot more variations in a given amount of time. All the images with Lisa from this, the previous and the the post before that one are taken in about three hours of time. I would never be able to get such a rich variety of images if I were to setup lights every time.

It allows me to walk all around, and just analyze the available light in the room, and shoot from whatever angle I want to. I never have a light stand or a cable that is in the way. I don’t need to bother about light intensities or distances from my multiple light sources, … I have just the available light, and depending on where my model stands I will certainly need to adapt my exposure settings, but I only need to do that on my camera, and I’m good to go again.

2. I just don’t like it to drag all those flash lights and stands and cables etc. … I suppose I must have some kind of laziness inside me :p

Lisa in the beautiful lingerie gown I could lend from Tutti Passi, by Felice Art Couture

I’ll call the first image ‘Für Elise’, after all, I was named after a certain Ludwig Von Beethoven …

thank you for watching

don’t forget to click for a bigger version of the last image, it’s worth it!

see you soon for next chapter 🙂

Ludwig

Tatjana at Sabine’s house

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures

a series of color images I took at the house with the wonderful garden, in Ronse.

Sabine saw my work in the ‘Kunst omhulst in Villa 99’ exhibit, and she tracked me down on Facebook. Per return, I saw pictures of her garden and I immediately fell in love with the beauty and romantic feeling the garden expresses. I had a first shoot with Anna O. in the garden itself, and now her house interior was decor for this shoot with Tatjana. Sabine is a painting artist herself, and very open minded for these collaborations. Thank you Sabine, for having me at your home that day. Tatjana is a non professional model, but very experienced in model shoots anyway. She was really open to work with, and a lovely personality. We were so indulged in the shoot that we had to hurry to catch the train at the scheduled time.

Rain all afternoon, so we didn’t have the possibility to shoot in the garden that day, but the interior of the house proved very adequate for a ‘natural beauty’ shoot.

Make up: Heidi H.

Hair: Nathalie R.

Lingerie was willingly provided by Tutti-Passi, woman friendly pleasure shop.

Hope you like this small selection of images.

I will soon show a second series of black and white images from that same shoot.

Images taken with Canon 5D II and Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG Art and Canon EF 100 mm f2.8 Macro IS L. In the first and second image I used a strobist flash off camera to get some additional light. It is bounced on a reflector, right side from the camera.

Hope to see you again soon, don’t hesitate to leave a comment, ask questions or whatever.

Ludwig

Tatjana having coffee

beauty, Personal Pictures

I’m currently developing a series of images I did with Tatjana. She had coffee first.

Model: Tatjana D.

Make up: Heidi H.

Hair: Nathalie R.

Lingerie: Tutti-Passi.be

photographer: me, Ludwig Desmet

Image taken with the new Sigma 50mm Art, developed in LR5

soon more to come.

thank you for watching

HDR composited image workflow

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

Making a panoramic image in Photoshop is pretty simple, in the menu you go to file->automate->Photomerge, there you select your images, press enter and photoshop does it all for you, no hassle. You’ll just need to crop afterwards and your done.

Making a HDR image in Photoshop is pretty simple too, in the menu you go to file-> automate->Merge to HDR Pro, follow some easy steps, choose if you want to work 16 bit or 32 bit, choose wether you want to edit in Adobe Camera Raw or just save a 32 bit file, and further edit in ACR or Lightroom (since version 4)

Now making a panoramic image that has been shot in exposure bracketing, is a little more complicated, although a logic iteration of the above two workflows.

Here’s what needs to be done (Lightroom/Photoshop workflow)

000. Work with your Autofocus off for your exposures, focus once, then leave your focus be, work manually, work on a tripod, with preferably a panoramic head, or, as in this case with a Tilt-Shift lens.

00. Make sure you get sufficient overlap in between images (1/3 of your image is a good average)

0. Make sure you get the same exposure bracketing series in all your images

1. Grab your first bracketing series in Lightroom, right click and Edit in -> Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop.

2. Photoshop will run trough a series of actions, and will bring up the HDR pro interface.

3. Now you’ll choose 32 bit, remove ghosts if necessary (only available from 3 or more images, and good if you have moving elements in-between images.) and just click OK.

4. Your 32 bit tif file will appear awful in Photoshop, no panic, just click the save button. (not save as, as this might save your image in a different directory than the original one)

5. Back in Lightroom, you should be able to see your image as filename-edit.tif You can edit the image just the way you edit RAW files, except now you have 10 stops exposure range up and down. Work with exposure, highlights, shadows, blacks and whites to get your image correctly edited. It might be a good idea to do lenscorrections in at this stage. (lens deformations and chromatic aberration, no perspective corrections)

6. Do this for all your bracketing series, try to develop the different images the same way. Avoid too many local corrections, as you will not be able to synchronize them because they will need to be applied in a different spot in every different 32 bit image.

7. Now the final step is just to make a panoramic image from all our previously edited images: select all your edited 32 bit files and right click -> edit in -> Merge to Panorama in Photoshop

8. Photoshop will gather all images and nicely align them out, make layer masks according to the images content (actually it searches for places where there’s no geometrical difference in two consecutive layers, to make the transition at that spot. That may lead to awkward layer masks, but the result is generally good.

9. Crop the image to get rid of white edges (photoshop will do transformations to compensate for lens corrections, or to get the perspective in-between images working ok)

flatten and further edit if needed (sharpening, filters, …)

10. Sit back and enjoy your work.

Visual representation of the workflow (click for bigger):

A small version of the final image.

This is the entrance hall of the Antwerpen Centraal train station:

Thank you for reading, you might as well follow my blog now you’re here :p

Ludwig

Flooded Bathroom

beauty, Personal Pictures

One single image today.

Result of the Mansion shoot with Anna Orlova, in Ronse Belgium.

Styling and photography by me.

Make up and model: Anna Orlova

Limited edition prints available.

I have to admit that I did some tricky stuff on this one.

Post processing and 3D image manipulation/rendering by me.

thank you for watching!

ludwig

Anna at the Mansion – Part I, the Salon. NSFW

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures

Hi,

I had another shoot at the mansion some weeks ago. Anna is a international nude model, and from time to time she is working in Belgium for a couple of days. I had the possibility to work with her for a short day in Ronse. We did a shoot at the mansion before noon, had a break at my place, then had a second shoot in what I want to call ‘the garden of eden’, a new location I discovered lately, in Ronse as well. I will show you the results of this cooperation in multiple posts. First part is called the Salon, one of the bigger pieces of the Mansion, on the ground floor, and now almost renovated completely. The owners of the house are slowly gathering furniture that fits together with the interior, and we were lucky to find this lovely small bench.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to buy some more gear, and I wanted to further expand my low-light possibilities. I have had a hard time making sharp images several times in these ‘mansion shoots’ due to low light conditions. The lenses I have are good, are having the benefits of wide open apertures, but none of them features image stabilization. I have decided to try on the Canon 100 mm f2,8 L IS for this reason. It is one stop slower than my 135 mm, but it provides 4 stop image stabilization, so I gain about 3 stops in shutter speed, provided that my subject is not moving. I have managed to keep Anna stay in place. 😀 Another benefit from this lens is its macro capability, so no more struggling with minimal focus distances. This lens focuses so close I can get a single eye filling the frame.

I think you’ll be able to figure out which images are with 100 mm lens, all the others are wide angle, with my 24 mm.

About the NSFW in the title, If you are offended by the nudity in my images, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to, but I think it is tasteful and beautiful, so I will very probably post more (covered) nude images in the near future.