Exhibit Opening – Gafodi Fotosalon 2015

You must have heard of it. I have been invited to be the guest photographer at the ‘Gafodi fotosalon 2015’, a yearly event, exhibiting the club’s best work, the results of their national image contest and youth contest, and home for a different guest photographer every year. I have the honour to fill the main stage, … 😎 Last saturday we had the opening ceremony, 200+ audience, with speeches from the president of the club and some other honourable guests, awards ceremony and so on. As the guest photographer I received a basket full of beers and other goodies. To be consumed AFTER shoots, not before 😉 I also had the pleasure to meet 3 of the models that are in at least one of the images on stage: Pauline, Jenn and Lisa. Thank you ladies, for coming to the opening, it was a pleasure to meet you again, and to be able to present my and your work ‘on a larger scale’. Pauline: Cirrus – actually I present 4 images of this shoot on this exhibit, you should come to see the others. Lisa: Lisa at the Mansion Jenn: Pearls and Sudden Gust of wind The exhibit is open this monday morning, next friday/saturday/sunday, and then again on monday morning. (market day in Gavere) I hope you will be able to make it. Next to my work there’s plenty more good pictures exhibited.

Interim model – Eline at the storage room.

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A good week ago I had a cancelled photo shoot appointment. So I had a free moment for photography and no model. A quick call on facebook soon resulted in an interested replacement model. In her introduction message on FB she said. ” … and I’m not shy” as a reply to my call that ended with the words “Don’t be shy”. That was the day before the shoot.

Eline never posed before, and although not shy, a bit nervous anyway. We have worked over several locations, of which the old storage room was the first. A very dark environment, with a lot of dust and dirt, but Eline didn’t matter and went for it all the way.

Thank you Eline, for being my interim model for a day, you did very well.

All images: Canon 5D mark II, with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG Art.

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ludwigdesmet_CD-5293

To be continued …

ps. in a reaction, Eline wrote me:

I can’t express enough my appreciation for your work. I have absolutely no regrets in being your ‘interim model’. Your approach is unbelievably professional and you know how to cover up my physical flaws by guiding me into the right poses. …

Ludwig

the essence of youth – NSFW

beauty, erotic, Personal Pictures

Rolleiflex Tessar 75mm f3,5 – Kodak T-Max 400 film. Scanned on Epson Perfection 3170 Photo, retouched and developed in Photoshop and Lightroom CC.

Have you ever seen Sam Haskins book ‘Five Girls’ ?

Thank you to the model, the location owner, the weather and my friend P. Z. for the camera.

Thank YOU for visiting my blog.

Ludwig

Model photography – Corinne Vionnet style

Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

A former classmate from photography classes is currently still following courses in a different institute, to further expand his photographic horizons.

He came with the question ‘if I could figure out how to make a Corinne Vionnet image’ …

Corinne Vionnet has created a series of works, assembling a massive amount of tourists images (1000) into one single image. The resulting image is some kind of a condensed, time-spanning assembly of the tourist spot at hand.

I’ve tried to assemble similar style images with a limited number of beauty shots. These are the results.

I got interested in this technique, and I thought that I could make a ‘universal female portrait’, so I assembled 45 different images into one portrait. Image here under. Looks funny, but I liked the originals more.

This made me think about ‘Das Parfum’, the novel by Patrick Süskind, where the Jean Baptiste Grenouille tries to capture the essence of young women in a perfume, (he has to kill the women for his perfume) but instead of creating a perfume of youth, he became a monster. Not that the below image looks like a monster, but it is not exactly a beauty either. 😀 A lot is due to the different angles in which the original faces are oriented in the image. I need to try with ‘straight facing’ portraits next time.

I think I should experiment a little more with it, to see where I can get to with portrait work. Anyway, my friend was pleased with the results, and I have discovered something new. 🙂

thank you for reading,

Ludwig

Jenn – Black Coat

beauty, Personal Pictures

As I told in a previous post, a very cold day, cold wind, no sun … great light for a shoot.

A black coat, a set of nice lingerie and some sexy boots plus a very beautiful alley of trees as a background. That’s what we needed for this fine series of images. Hairdo: my wife Nathalie 🙂

Farmers went and came trough the alley, they must have wondered what we were doing there. I kept the car heating on, so Jenn could get warm in between different takes.

Taken with Canon 5D II and Canon 135 mm f2.0 (except second, with Canon 24 mm f1.4 L II), its been a while since I used this lens for a shoot, but it still is a nice piece of glass with great contrast and perfect sharpness wide open.

Jenn told me she didn’t look good in pictures, what do you think?

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And a last image with Rolleiflex 3,5 Tessar 75 mm on Kodak T-max 400 film.

thanks for watching, come back again soon.

ludwig

Big black hat, the series. Marion (NSFW)

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Marion never posed before, but she contacted me as she loved the images she had seen with Pauline. She listened carefully to my instructions, working for a natural and beautiful look, and we ended up with this result. I am really proud of this shoot, this is only a small part of the entire selection, with a white blouse and a black hat as the main props.

It was the first time I worked in this location. A beautiful house, with an annex ancient building. The weather was great, although very bright sunlight doesn’t make it easier to work within the dynamic range of the sensor.Nut the sun kept Marion warm and cosy as she got partially undressed on this spring morning.

Have you noticed how I rarely have my models interact with me? I think this is part of my style, and one secret to creating intimate, natural looking images.

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I shot a couple of rolls of film too on this shoot, these images will follow later on.

thank you for watching, I hope you liked the images.

Ludwig

Big black hat – Marion

beauty, Personal Pictures

A single image from a very recent shoot. Great weather, a new model and a new location. Yummie 🙂

soon more of this,

ludwig

A very good morning – BW – Jenn at house Adelaide – NSFW

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

thoughtful, spontaneous, fun, serious, wondering, open minded, …

… Jenn told me she didn’t fit too well on images. That was until she saw the results of our shoot.

“the end result really is ‘WAW’, so you were right that being a good model is linked to the qualities of the photographer … whenever you have a location again I’d be most pleased to be your model again.”

I think I’m flattered. 😎

Same setup as the color version of this shoot. Only this time developed in a black and white version.

I Hope you like the images.

Come back again soon, to see the results of my next shoot. I promise now already they’ll be fantastic. (that’s because I’ve seen them already :p )

All the best, thank you for stopping by.

Never hesitate to leave a reaction.

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

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

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

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

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

ludwig desmet

beauty and fine art photography

natural beauty

Exhibit Opening – Gafodi Fotosalon 2015

Interim model – Eline at the storage room.

the essence of youth – NSFW

Model photography – Corinne Vionnet style

Jenn – Black Coat

Big black hat, the series. Marion (NSFW)

Big black hat – Marion

A very good morning – BW – Jenn at house Adelaide – NSFW

Clair-Obscur, or playing with light

Digital publication – NIF Magazine

Fien at The Mansion – about light.

Fien, fall in the flemish ardennes

Roselien at House Adelaide

Emilie at Hotel Remington – NSFW

Sofie at the orphanage

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

Ivana at the Mansion – part II – NSFW

Ivana – The model – at the Mansion – NSFW

Sanne at House Adelaïde – BW

Lisa at The Mansion – Part III – Lingerie