Architectural photography – Shoes or No Shoes

architecture, Personal Pictures

if you are into fashion design, shoe design or if you have any kind of shoe fetish, you absolutely need to see this museum collection. Without spending too much words about it, it contains the largest ethnographic collection of shoes in the world, next to a vast collection of designers’ shoes and artists’ shoes. More info on the opening times and location: www.shoesornoshoes.com

I visited the place several times now, and I’m especially fond of the architectural qualities of the building. The building is constructed as a combination of hexagon shaped rooms. The main floor exhibition rooms have special north faced windows that assure a neutral light in any kind of weather. Credits for the architecture: original building (1973) : Emile Veranneman and Arch. Christiaan Vander Plaetse. Redesign (2008): Lode Uytterschaut, Johan Ketele and Rutger Davidts.

Last visit was with my architectural photography class from KISP. I never can deny the urge to take some photographs myself, in between tuition and guidance. The main purpose of this excursion was to emphasize on the link between the building and the surrounding area. My personal selection:

Images taken with Canon TS-E 24 mm f3.5 L II, except third image, taken with Canon EF 17-40 mm f 4.0 L. All on Canon 5D mark II.

Some images are HDR composites, some are stitched panoramic. (although they all are square 🙂 )

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to visit the place!

see you soon,

Ludwig

Digital publication – NIF magazine

beauty, Nude

Another set of images made it to the digital ‘Nude Is Fashion’ platform:

Lisa at the Mansion. From a shoot last summer, one of the last shoots I did at the Mansion. Now as an exclusive image series on NIFmagazine.

Link here

Pauline

beauty, Personal Pictures

Pauline studies to be a drama artist, and she added some drama to our last shoot. 🙂

A close up portrait.

1/160 at f2.8 ISO 160 Canon 5D II with Canon EF100mm f2.8 Macro IS

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

Sarah at Sabine’s house – the living room – nsfw

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Part two of this shoot with Sarah. In the living room of this nice house.

A grey and wet day, difficult light in this house with dark accents and furniture, and relatively small windows.

I look for windows for the available light to fall maximally on my model, but then you are in a backlight situation, which makes it always difficult to not overexpose the background/underexpose the foreground.

A further problem with this is that you have a cool color temp from the outside (6500 or so) and a warm 3000 degrees Kelvin temp on the inside. Luckily we are able now to locally brush in color temperature in Lightroom now.

Two of the images are taken with somewhat further away from the window, with only some available tungsten light.

Sarah has some kind of ‘tristesse’ in how she looks at the camera, I’m not sure she realizes this herself. Maybe she will if she reads this blog. 😉

She also has amazingly long and beautiful legs and a nice figure. She is rather used to posing, but she managed to still pose in some natural way.

Canon 100 mm f 2.8 L Macro IS and Sigma 50 mm f 1.4. I’m happy I have a stabilized lens for these occasions. The 100 mm Macro allows to stretch shutter speed up to 1/25 th of a second, with no visible camera shake.

thank you for watching,

ludwig

Approaching Valentine’s day.

erotic, Nude, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Handcuffs and blindfolds, they have nothing to do with submission or repression, but all with the fine art of lovemaking.

text by Greg Phillips

image © ludwig desmet

Model: Sarah

1/25 sec – f2.2 – sigma 50mm f1.4 DG Art on Canon 5D mark II

thank you for watching.

Ludwig

Sarah at Sabines house – Part I – The artists’ studio. (Nudity involved)

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

———- 2015 ————

Well I think I should start by giving you all my best wishes for 2015. Good health, a warm shelter and caring people around you, some personal challenges, and the time you need to help develop yourself to a richer being. (not financially speaking, … I think)

I have decided for myself to sell my 3D rendering business, in favor of my photography work. Let’s see what happens next. 😉

This blog had 49.931 views from 9.994 visitors during 2014. You are not alone out there, thank you for following my work! The fact that you are reading these words means you are still there. I would like to repeat that if you have a particular question or request, just ask.

————————-

I asked Sabine if she felt ok about me photographing a model in her studio, and without hesitation she said ‘sure, no problem’. I think Sabine is not really aware yet what exceptional work she makes. She has an amazingly strong and expressive pencil, and she mainly works with the human body as a subject. She is preparing an exhibit for late spring, so her studio is packed with finished works, works in progress, and full of idea’s that are waiting to get realized.

I had Sarah as a model. A thin, almost breakable figure, that contrasted extremely well with the robust paintings all around her. She agreed to pose topless/naked based on a discussed mood board. She did really well, but she got cold really quickly (‘as she always does’ she told me).

I had an awful mix of light sources, which forced me to work only black and white here (cool light coming from a rainy day, Tungsten spots in the ceiling, a phosphorescent lamp over the work bench, and a neutral daylight source Sabine uses to finish off her paintings. This means there is no way to get a proper white balance for all these sources, and you can not correct the different light colors afterwards properly.

Anyway, here are the images. For the technical details: Canon 5D II with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG Art and Canon 24 mm f1.4 L II. ISO from 320 to 500, shutter speeds from 1/10th to 1/30th of a second (train yourself to get a stable hand 😉 ) and apertures f2.0 – f2.2.

Thank you Sarah, for your confidence and cooperation, thank you not caring about the cold, thank you for coming to Ronse this rainy day.

Thank you Sabine, for saving my day (two other locations became unavailable very last minute) and for letting me into your home. Thank you for sharing your ideas and work.

Fien at The Mansion – about light.

beauty, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks

After our outdoor forest shoot, we had some time left for a quick session ‘at The Mansion’.

The Mansion is still my favorite location for indoor shooting, since it has so many possibilities. Whatever moment of the day, there’s always a room that has nice light, the building is free-standing, which means that there are windows all around, and some rooms have windows on three sides. So besides choosing my main light source, all I have to check is my own position, the position of my model, in respect to the multiple windows I have around me. I can shoot with a window in my back, and still shoot against the light with the window just in front of me.

On the attic, I have rooms with only a small light, on cloud covered days that becomes very similar to what a softbox would do. On sunny days, I have a light spot on the floor, which reacts as an indirect light, and I still get the ‘softbox’ windowlight. On sunny days I rather not shoot in straight sunlight, because of the huge contrast ratios between sun-lit area’s and shadow areas.

Some images to illustrate my explanations:

1. One of the attic rooms, a single window at the right of my model, cloudy day, no direct sunlight, a door opening just left of the image, you actually see the door at the left side. Gives me enough light to create that small rim light on the hair and body, and it adds just that little extra light on the floor, to make the rest of the body shape stand out.

2. The office: A row of windows left as well as right from the model. Moderate light amount. There is an additional window light just behind the model, above the door. I added the extra bit of artificial light, available in the room. (some small bulbs) The artificial light creates a warm color cast, that can be annoying because the natural light is color neutral or blueish, depending on the weather conditions.

Same location, but I changed position.

Now I’m shooting against the light, but also with the light coming from behind me. The windows are big enough to provide a soft overall light, slightly coming from above, the windows in the back produce a very beautiful contour light all over my model. Note that I position myself in a way that my model is in front of a darker background, otherwise the rim light would get lost. (this was the first picture actually, Fien still has the hairdo from the exterior shoot.)

Ludwig Desmet-FienVH-3148

3. The angels room. Named after a beautiful decoration above the wooden side panels, with angels and flower, …

I have my main window light just behind me, aimed west, this picture was one of the last, so not long before sunset. There’s two more windows on the right, one just behind the model, one a little further away. The window just behind the model was covered with curtains, so only the far right window remains. Again this window helps creating a nice hairlight and ‘sheds a little light’ to the back end of the sofa.

4. The main entrance. Here my model actually stands outside, under the porch covering the entrance to the front door. This is perfect soft light for nice portraits. It is evenly distributed from above and from below, and it prevents hard shadows under the eyebrows. I have no backlight, but the glass in the front door provides a little definition of the hair contours.

5. The stairway. The main light source here is artificial light, coming from above (slightly warm tinted) The rim light is coming from a window behind the model, higher up the wall, spanning from left to right. This gives the nice light on the hair, the side of the head, the cleavage and breast, as well as the wooden pillars. Again mixed light white balance, but to me it is ok.

6. Also taken in the angels room, this time the model is standing where I took picture 3, back to the window, The window is big and high, providing enough light for an overall well lit image. Now we opened the curtains of the opposing window, giving a beautiful fill in light from the left.

To all aspiring model photographers out there, I hope you learnt something from these short explanations.

To all the others, I hope you enjoyed the images.

A big thank you to Fien for her confidence and cooperation. She never posed before, I think she did really well. Above that she’s a charm to work with. A big thank you also to the owners of The Mansion, for giving me continued access to this magnificent building.

see you again soon,

ludwig

Fien, fall in the flemish ardennes

beauty

Hi there,

Another model post. For a change I went outdoors with my model. Fall had turned the so called ‘Muziekbos’ (Music Forest) into this wonderful palette of fall colors the last few weeks, and I found it a pity not to use this amazing environment for my next shoot.

I met Fien at Bioplanet Ghent (that’s what shopping organic stuff is good for 😉 ) and after checking my blog she agreed for a model shoot. We met at my place, and Nathalie couldn’t resist of making a quick hairdo. I think it suited well for this romantic backdrop.

Off for shooting, rather cold outside temperatures, but Fien didn’t complain at all. Still we didn’t make this a long session, about 40 minutes. The gray covered sky provided very soft natural light, good for outside portraits.

I mixed black and white and color images in this set. I get to like BW images more and more, but couldn’t have converted them all and loose those great fall colors.

I hope you like the images, taken with my trusty Canon 5D II and 24-50-100 mm lenses.

Oh, and during the shoot, we stumbled upon Bart Heirweg, a very good landscape photographer from Belgium. He was shooting fall colors too, but with a slightly different approach. 😉 You should check out his website, he makes the most amazing landscape images, and offers his knowledge in different workshops. Website

See you again soon for part II of this shoot meeting: Fien at The Mansion. Those images will follow later this week.

best,

Ludwig

Dare you dare me …

Uncategorized

No words …

see you soon.

Ludwig

Roselien at House Adelaide

beauty, Personal Pictures

Roselien has long legs, no even longer, …

She contacted me recently because she had seen my work, and she loved the ‘full of character and emotion’ part of my photography. I think I need to write that down, for future speeches.

She volunteered to be a model if I needed one. I think Roselien proved to be a model able of expressing emotion and character herself. On top of that she has very intriguing eyes, very pale almost like those snow dogs (husky). Oh and those legs, endle(g)ss they seem. We had fun working together on a dull and gray afternoon end october.

All images shot on Canon 5D mark II and with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 Art and Canon 100 mm f2.8 L IS Macro.

Thank you for watching, see you soon!

Ludwig

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.

Sofie at the orphanage

beauty, Personal Pictures

The orphanage, it’s been a long time since I photographed there. I had no access to the Mansion that day, and the orphanage proved a welcome alternative.

It might not be as fancy or beautiful as The Mansion, it has character and atmosphere by millions, …

I met Sofie at a good friends wedding party early september, and asked her if she would like to be a model in one of my shoots. Mostly this question comes with some hesitation and fear. I might be the dirty old man, looking for some secret fantasies to come true. :p

After a week or so I got an email message that confirmed her interest, and that in fact it had been her husband that pushed her into this. He had been looking trough my images (on this blog-site) and found them to be beautiful and respectful. We met some weeks later. Sofie is not a model in the strict sense of the word, she never posed before, and was somewhat intimidated by the event. But she did very well, she managed to look straight into the camera with an expression of confidence and self awareness, and she had no problems following my posing instructions. I would call her a natural beauty.

Thank you Sofie, for your patience and thrust!

I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures.

Come again soon,

Ludwig

New court building in Ghent – architectural photography classes

architecture, Personal Pictures

Hello there,

as promised, some images of the new court building in Ghent.

architects Stéphane Beel and Lieven Achtergael, opened in 2007

I had lent my tripod to one of my students, so these images are not ‘top notch’, but they are well enough to show.

Normally you should never do architectural photography without a tripod. The advantages of a tripod are multiple:

It helps in fine tuning your camera position, a 3 way head is optimum for this.

It helps when light levels get low, a stable tripod allows using small apertures, even at dim light.

It allows for multiple exposures or bracketing exposure series, when you need to handle a too large dynamic range in your scene.

It slows you down, which I think is a good thing in architectural photography.

I use a Berlebach 2042 report tripod, which has a ball joint just beneath the 3-way head. This ball joint is of immense help in leveling out your tripod head. Both tripod and head are a heavy pack, but in the same respect very stable. I have been using it for about 4 years now, and it shows no signs of wear. In the image below, you should clearly see the ball joint in the tripods base. Oh, and it is the most beautiful type of tripod I have ever seen, with its solid ash wood legs.

The main goal for this evening was to concentrate on light and lighting, and again, these were taken without tripod. 😉

See you soon for the next series of images: Sanne at house Adelaide, the color version.

have a nice weekend, Ludwig

Ivana at the Mansion – part III – the woman behind the model – NSFW

beauty, Personal Pictures

After working with Ivana for about an hour or two, it appeared to me that she hadn’t showed herself in the shoot the way she presented herself when ringing at my door that same morning.

So I wanted her to look NOT like a model for once. So in stead of asking her to convey a certain emotional state, or a certain strength or vulnerability or whatever look I had received from her, now I wanted her to show the real Ivana. Now THAT was a very hard think to do. And I think that is the biggest disadvantage of working with pro models, they kind of lost themselves in those hundreds and hundreds of hours of being someone else.

But I think we succeeded, and Ivana at last had me have an insight in her natural being. So here she comes, the real Ivana. I am proud, thank you Ivana!

thank you, come again soon, please leave me your thoughts and questions.

warm greetings,

Ludwig

Ivana at the Mansion – part II – NSFW

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Another advantage of working with professional models is that they often have little or no reservations towards nudity, as long as it is tasteful and not in disrespect to their person.

Ivana is very used to posing nude, and I am getting used to working with models in a natural, unstressed way. I consider it a gift that my wife will let me work with these women, in a way that most people consider at least ‘unconventional’. (Certainly here in Belgium) On the other hand, I must say that in this growing process, I never really felt sexual attraction during these shoots. I think it would be no good idea to not keep control over your male instincts at these moments. That will certainly ruin your photography, and it will most probably ruin your reputation as a photographer. A lot of men asked me if they could assist with light setups in my shoots, but unfortunately I work with natural light only, so I don’t need assistance. 😉

I am very much inspired by the work of Radoslaw Pujan, and maybe you can find some of his influences in my images from time to time. He’s both an exquisite photographer (working mainly on film) but also a good storyteller in his image series.

Enjoy!

come back soon for another post!

Ivana – The model – at the Mansion – NSFW

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Ivana is an international working beauty and fine art nude model. She was in Belgium last september, and I took the occasion to work with her for a morning session at the mansion.

Working with professional models has advantages and disadvantages. One of the biggest pro’s is that they very quickly understand what they need to convey in the image. If you want a certain expression or attitude in the image, most of them are quick in producing the look you’re after. Another advantage is that you can be sure they will be present at the fixed appointment date/time. Working with ‘facebook models’ sometimes lends to ‘no-show’ at the time of the shoot. (In excuse of Grandma’s dying and more of this stuff). Ivana also took care of her own make-up, hair was done by my wife Nathalie. Nathalie attended an entire shoot for the first time, and found it enriching and exciting. I was really ok for having her around, and so was Ivana. She’s used to having a whole team present at shoots, so she couldn’t be bothered less with only me and Nathalie around.

We worked in different themes, I’ll show you ‘the lady of the castle’ first.

for those wondering what NSFW stands for: Not safe for work – due to nudity involved.

All images available light only, Canon 100 mm Macro and Sigma 50 mm on my trustworthy Canon 5D II.

Click images for a bigger view.

thank you for watching, next set coming soon,

Sanne at House Adelaïde – BW

beauty, Personal Pictures

A lot of models ask me if I will work according to a concept or a clear idea, I almost always point them straight to this website. I do not really work out much preparation in my beauty shoots. I make sure I have a location, sometimes I take care of some clothing, and that’s about it. Sanne asked me ‘three hours, is that not too short for a shoot?’, well, since I work with no artificial light, it is not, you’ll be tired after those three hours, because I make you do so much different things in this period of time. I love to work in House Adelaïde because it has beds, nice wooden floors, curtains, light from both sides of the building atmosphere and style. If you are looking for a luxury holiday home in Ronse, that’s the place to be.

A small selection of the morning session with Sanne, black and white.

come back again soon for the color version 🙂

grtz, Ludwig

Upcoming Exhibit

exhibition, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

I will be taking part in the exhibit ‘Contemporary art Flanders’ running from october 3rd at BNP Paribas Fortis Bank in Kortrijk.

I will be presenting 9 small prints, one very large print, all from my beauty shoots.

Interested in joining me for the vernissage, be there this friday evening at 17:30 hs.

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 …