hi there,
please enjoy with me these results from another ‘lazy Sunday morning’ session I did with Alisson this time. Below you’ll find a link to the behind the scenes video of this particular session.
you wanna see how the session looks like, behind the scenes:
check it out here, you’ll need a Youtube account, as it is 18+ and it won’t play outside Youtube:
Hi there fans and followers,
I’m pleased to be able to show you some results from the individual ‘available light – art nudes’ workshops I gave last summer. It seems a long time ago already. …
The location proved very well suited for a range of light situations and with some creativity we managed to turn a ‘standard’ bed and breakfast location into a perfect photo location.
Model of the day, the always beautiful and elegant Riona Neve (http://rionaneve.com/)
Remember you can be part of this too, If you want upgrade your ‘available light’ portrait skills, please drop me a line trough this page
In the coming weeks I’ll post some images from the second individual workshop day, with Violaine as my model.
all the best,
Ludwig
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’ 😉
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.
Another series of images I did with Riona Neve last summer, the one and only model shoot I did this summer, in between two periods of lockdown there was not much time and I was very busy finishing off the studio room …
We had this beautiful modern house with swimming pool at our disposal for the afternoon, and started with some classy images with long black pants and a black blazer, paired with the inevitable sunglasses of course.
when I met Julia in Brussels, the weather was really dull, but I shot some film images anyway. Dull weather is technically less challenging than the harsh sun, at least if there is sufficient light. I had no excess light but could manage to shoot the film at box speed, with the widest aperture of the Rolleiflex, f/3.5 … rather tricky on the focussing, but some of the images came out really well. Hope you like them. Shot on Ilford HP5 Plus
Julia Yaroshenko on the balcony, in the series of hidden gems 2019
thank you for watching and be sure to check out this blog next week, I might have more interesting images coming up
Ludwig
Same as last week, you’re getting spoiled, aren’t you 🙂
Some results I managed to capture during my own workshop Model/lingerie photography with available light. Models during this workshop: Riona Neve and Sahri Nimi – behind the scenes video at the bottom of this post.
All images are available as a fine art print, inquiries please send me an email.
Hidden gems 2019, workshop Lingerie with available light
behind the scenes video on my Youtube Channel
thanks for watching, make sure to come by next week!
Ludwig
As I do conduct the workshop myself, I do not have very much time to make images myself, it is my absolute desire to help the participant as much as possible.
Nevertheless, I managed to make some good shots in between tuition, and here they are, in the hidden gems 2019 category, images from the portrait workshop.
Remember, all images taken with available light only, on the day of the workshop.
On the bottom of the page I’ll re-link the youtube video I made from this interesting day, go check it out!
behind the scenes on Youtube
thanks for stopping by, see you next Sunday!
Ludwig
As a registered 18+ Youtube user you can see the video on my Youtube channel, but for your convenience I’ll put it here trough Vimeo:
It was a fun day, I didn’t really adapt my shooting to the cameraman, but still, there was some influence at least. I’m quite pleased with the results of this day, look for yourself, you’ll probably recognise some of the scenes from the video. The film shots are black framed.
Shot on film: (Rolleiflex Tlr 3.5 Planar on Ilford Film)
and then one more, as a tribute to the cameraman Franswa. You can see me make this shot at 4.52 in the film!!
thanks for looking, If you want to make sure to see everything I publish, you might consider subscribing to my blog. You can do this on the bottom of the welcome page, click the + sign.
You’ve seen the first image with Julia a couple of weeks ago. The process of selecting and fine-tuning the images often is slow, but in this case, it took me even longer, since I had to finish all evaluations for my evening class students. All is done now, and vacation has officially started. A good moment to show you the first series from this collaboration.
• In bed with Julia •
What I often seek in models, is the ability to give me a natural, relaxed look. Julia is perfectly able to do so. And of course, she is stunningly beautiful! I’ve enjoyed this afternoon in Brussels a lot, and I hope the images give you an idea of the atmosphere and get you in a similar mood.
thanks for passing by, I hope to see you soon again!
Ludwig
5 minutes past 2
Shot in a beautiful house somewhere in Belgium.
Model: Sahri Nimi model
Camera: Rolleiflex tlr 3.5
Film: Ilford HP5 plus 400 – developed in Ilfotech LC29
and a couple of minutes earlier it was exactly 2 O’clock and the behind the scene’s cameraman was looking at what I was about to be doing 😉
sorry it took me so long to post again, I have been working on a lot of different things lately, and I’m having my first ‘available light’ workshop in about a week now, so things have been busy.
see you again soon, I have some wonderful images on the shelf.
Ludwig
still working on my workshop program for this summer, and I have the honor to announce an exclusive Art-Nude 4 day workshop on a unique location:
Art-Nude Week
Together with 2 professional models, I will guide you through the entire process of doing art-nude photography. From the location scouting, over measuring light, viewing your composition, working with and guiding models up to images selection and post-processing. A condensed all-in-one workshop for the enthusiast photographer.
Who is this workshop meant for: You are an enthusiast hobbyist and you are looking to upgrade your skills. You like to work with people in your photography, and you enjoy the female subject. You always wanted to try sensual art-nude in your photography but never found a way to get started. You want to taste the privilege of working with professional models, under controlled and safe circumstances. You fancy a nice castle and park as a shooting environment and you prefer the looks of natural light. If your answer is yes to the majority of these allegations, then this is meant for YOU!
What will be the setting? The setting will be a splendid privately owned castle near Tournai (Belgium) with surrounding green areas and annex buildings. The entire location (except a small private area in the castle) is available for shooting. An ideal place to work at ease and enjoy a vast amount of photography possibilities. Study the light and work with models. Talking about models, I will have 2 professional art-nude models present for three days. (one extra model may be added if the number of participants exceeds 5. They are easy to work with and know a lot about posing, if you are not so familiar with that part, they will guide you. The number of photographers is kept very limited, to allow every photographer individual time with the models.
The location for the workshop
If you are interested in this workshop or one of the other workshops: CLICK HERE
or at least I often think about quitting …
… because when I think about all the costs I have been making – for photography gear, for exhibition prints, for locations, models, make-up artists – then I must realize that it does not generate any money, quite the contrary.
Then I sit down, try gathering all my courage for the next shoot, try to find a good location, a model, a make up artist, find a moment that fits for everybody involved, phone calls, emails, messenger … and then after the shoot I get home, more or less exhausted. But then when scrolling trough hundreds of images from that day, I see that again we could make some beautiful shots and I think, ‘come on, just hang on a little longer, things will turn out ok one day’ …
thanks to Sahri Nimi Modelpage for being my model once again, thanks Isabelle Eeckhout for making her look gorgeous again, thank you Vergucht Franswa for joining us for making a reportage about me during this shoot, and a big thank you to the family that opened their fabulous house for me as if it were my house. And last but not least, thank you to my wife, who has even more patience with me than I have myself, that even pushes me harder than I could do so myself, and that still believes 200% in what I do.
• Bath with a view •
Available in a very limited edition of 7,
sizes 50×50 cm, 75x75cm, 100x100cm.
Epson archival print on fine art cotton-based paper. Price on request.
It’s official, I’ll exhibit the entire summer vacation in the magnificent building of ‘het GODSHUIS’ in Sint-Laureins. Great architecture, great pictures, I hope you find the time to enjoy this exhibit, it is open from June 30th till September 2nd. Every day, from 10am till 5pm. (except when there are large events in the building, you can find their event calendar here: http://www.godshuis.be/nieuws/ )
I will show 21 images, some never exhibited, some bigger than ever before.
You can combine the exhibit with an overnight stay at the location, they offer excellent rooms, there’s a restaurant, wellness, (also bookable without room) tea-room etcetera. The village of Sint-Laureins is also very well situated for a bikers out, or a walk along the canal.
Be there!
shot with my trusty old Rolleiflex, on Ilford HP5plus film.
Ancient Egyptians worshipped Ra or Re as the Sun God, he was one of the most important gods in the Fifth Dynasty (25th-24th century BC).
• RA •
The obelisk depicted here is one of modern ages (1968-1969) and was built in two ‘size’ stages, because the landlord found that the first one at 27m was not high enough. So he did aks the builders to build a second concrete formwork over the existing one, and ordered it to be 36m in height, which makes it final size bigger than the Paris’ Luxor obelisk at the place de la Concorde!
The obelisk is situated near Brussels, and was erected because the landlord loved the sunrise, but since he had changed his main room to the west side of the castle, he no longer had the sunrise in his room. That’s why he also wanted a large sun disk on the obelisk.
The park was meant to have a large water surface in front of the surface, but the owner died before completion of the surroundings and the lake was never realised.
thank you for reading,
Ludwig
… or maybe a little rough will do tonight
thank you for watching,
be kind to your partner 😉
Ludwig
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
I arrived at Leuven train station at about 11 O’clock, the people from the hotel had guaranteed me that I could do an early check in at about 13:00hrs. That was the time that I had fixed for the model and the make up lady. They pointed me a different building than the adres on the website, about 100 meters further. They gave me the entrance key.
I should ask the cleaning lady to clean my room first. … No it was not cleaned yet, yes, she would take care of it right after she finished a room on the upper floor. (3rd, I was on second) I had the time to get my gear out of the car and have a quick bite.
Fifteen minutes to one, and I’m back at the hotel. I get pointed to my room, it is available …
… at least if you can call this a room, it is more like place for a bed, and half a meter around to manoeuvre around it. How on earth am I going to do a photoshoot here. There’s no room for movement, there is no free wall, and there is no light. It is freezing cold outside so that is no option, even worse, it is a dark grey day.
How to shoot in a really tiny Hotel room, on a dark winter day?
Both the model and the make up lady are more or less on time, so we can start preparing. I get them installed by the window, when the chair is between the bed and the window, there’s no more room to pass besides it. … this promises no good …
No panic though, I’m thinking about the options, outdoors, at 3°C, rather not, … dark corridors in the hotel, no light at all, … public places other than this, … probably not for the sake of clothing changes …
move the beds … move the beds, … are they fitted to the walls, no, that’s great, let’s move the beds: We moved the beds to the ‘entrance hall’ of the room, so we acquired a 3x3meter ‘free space’ to work in, talking about luxury.
(3D rendering below, showing a before and after situation, done by me, I still own and run www.renderhouse.eu remember 🙂
On the far left is the entrance door and hallway, upper left corner, the black chunk taken out of the volume is the bathroom, then the ‘main room’ with two single beds and window at the right, three night reading lamps (one on each side of the bed, one over the small table.)
And look, there’s a heart in the lighting pattern, that was unintended, but definitely good sign. It was Valentine’s day the day before I wrote this post …
It helps having a patient model in such cases. I worked with Pauline several times now, and we’ve got a good mutual understanding. She will express her goals, I will try to relate them to mine and we proceed from there.
I tried using off-camera flashes, but those gave me very hard and overly bright light, with no interesting light patterns.
We ended up using only the reading lights, (one of them can be seen above, next to Pauline) to create some kind of theatrical look, sometimes I used a plastic bag to make the light source a little bigger and hence soften it a bit, but that was our only source of light for these images:
It was rather important to have the lights positioned accurately, as you can see the shadows are really hard, due to the small size of the lights. In the last images I had to tweak the blacks a little in post production, but they came out quite well. The light sources had a really narrow beam, and they gave very little spill within the room.
A couple of hours later, we moved back the beds, nobody noticed anything, me happy, my model happy …
Settings on the first series of images (1/10s f3.5 ISO 400 – Canon 5Ds, Sigma 50mm f1.4 A DG)
Settings on the upright pose with curtain background (1/80s f2.8 ISO 1600, 50mm f1.4 A DG)
Settings on the nudes (1/8 f4.5 ISO1250 – Canon 5Ds with Canon 100mm f2.8 macro IS L)
I was rather surprised how sharp the images came out at 1/10th with no stabilisation 🙂
best,
thank you for reading
the owners grant me access to the building for my art photography, it might help speed up the process of finding a new owner, what do you think? It has fine decorative elements everywhere, some are temporary, some are permanent.
Model: Eline Tandt
• Flower girl •
I’ve read an article recently in ‘Chasseur d’Images’ , a French photography magazine, with the latest issue covering some articles about nude photography. They stressed quite a lot about being well prepared and having some shots ready in your head or even sketched out on paper, …
I’m afraid I don’t really agree 😉 One of my biggest pleasures in this kind of photography is improvisation, inspiration of the moment, going with the flow, … I seldom prepare ‘shots’. My main preparation consists of up front communication with the model, about style, level of nudity, clothing and other practical issues, and finding a good location for the shoot. I have since I started doing this work built up a set of available locations, so I can vary and I don’t have to return to the same locations often. This keeps me sharp and the images different every time. This is the second set with Eva Evian in a remote castle in Belgium. We found a vase with dried flowers and started working with them. I hope you like the images. All shot on Canon 5Ds with sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A. All on ISO400, other settings vary.
Come again soon!
Ludwig
