Ronse

… and then she started wondering …

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

… and then she started wondering, why she didn’t get these letters he promised to send her. Was he killed in battle? Had he forgotten about her, or probably he couldn’t find the time to write to her. These questions filled her with doubt and restlessness, even more because she was unable to reach to him …

Shot on a one-to-one workshop with Sacha Leyendecker in his available light studio.

Model and make up: Rubia Stri

Photography: me for sure.

shot on canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A

settings for the main image: 1/80s f2.0 at ISO800

and then especially for Valentine’s day, complete series:

 

What I’ve learnt from the workshop:

Don’t be afraid to shoot at higher ISO settings if you need to to keep your shutter speeds safe. Play with light to create volume and atmosphere. Get some music into your studio to set a good mood. Create visual triangles in your images for dynamic compositions. Use props to create a setting and invite the viewer to imagine his/her way into the story.

What I didn’t agree on with Sacha (sorry Sacha, I think our styles are rather different, so the approach is different too): he told me to just have the model do whatever she likes to do, and what she feels comfortable with. I tend to interfere more with my model, and direct in certain ways (I also often work with non-professional models, maybe that’s why. Pro models are very much aware of what they look like, and how to move to get good shots).

I was very pleased with the results of the workshop. I was happy to meet Rubia, who is from Brussels by the way, and I had a very pleasant day for sure! Thank you Sacha, thank you Rubia!

thank you for watching.

Rainforest girl

beauty, erotic, location, Nude

from the same series as ‘Cyperus Papyrus’ with Kate_Ri as a model.

• Rainforest Girl •

ludwigdesmet_kr-3

I started experimenting with painted edges, I think I like the result in combination with this image in a ‘wild’ environment. I posted this image to FB with the question to like it, in order to support a ‘natural behaviour towards simple nudity’, …  I’m still having a problem with the hypocrite attitude of ‘general society’ towards nudity, where facebook will not stand posting nudity of any kind, where I see that cases of abuse and incest are daily matter in the psychotherapist practise of my wife, where porn industry has never ceased to increase, but where a bare nipple is subject to scandal … I still don’t get it, at least I hope YOU like the image.

1/60s f2.0 ISO800 Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50m f1.4

thank you for watching, for following, for your support

ludwig

Cyperus Papyrus

beauty, location, Nude, Personal Pictures

a single image post.

beautiful Kate in the botanic greenhouse.

 

“Cyperus Papyrus”, named after the plant flower

_ds_4544

 

Model and Make up: Kate_Ri

Styling and photography by me.

Plant stem kindly provided by the gardener who was pruning down several plants at the time of the shoot.

Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A – 1/200s f1.4 ISO400

Thank you for looking.

ludwig

dear David … I am sorry

beauty, location

I was sorry to hear about your death, earlier this week. I think your images have been a great inspiration to many young boys.

I mentioned you in a Facebook comment no longer than a few days ago. … ‘Unwanted David Hamilton effect’, as a comment on the below image.

What I am even more sorry about however, is that your death might be related to the accusations/assumptions made against your person, … for incorrect behaviour towards young, very young women. I think of that as a very very sad thing.

I feel sorry for all the models out there having been, or being wrongly treated by so-called photographers, mis-using the context of photography to cover up their abuse towards them.

• Kate in the greenhouse •

ludwigdesmet_kr-4469ds

about the image, and the (I won’t call it D.H. effect any longer) soft focus effect, it was created by extremely humid conditions (75% humidity and about 25°C) and a too cold camera coming from outside (5°C at most), immediately damping my front lens, again and again and again. Couldn’t wipe it off, it re-appeared after 10 seconds. … A lot of dehaze, extra contrast and clarity in LR kind of saved this image from deletion.

Model and make-up: Kate_Ri, styling by me.

Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG A

1/50s  f2.2  ISO100

ludwig

Bedroom mood – with Rubia

beauty, Nude, personal tips & tricks

as a final setup on the Sacha Leyendecker workshop (yes, I can still learn a lot too) we had a mattress and some white bed linen and a very enjoyable – wasn’t it Rubia? – down bed cover.

I tried to create an atmosphere of comfortable well being in this series. Rubia is a professional model and she understood the idea well. The advantage of professional models is that they know very well how to move to have a good looking pose, the downside of it can be that they are very hard to be photographed as their real personality. They often get some kind of ‘model layer’ that gets in front of their person. This was not the case with Rubia. We had a long talk before the shoot, that helps to get barriers down. We both got very relaxed before the shoot started. I rather have the habit of giving quite some direction to my models, Sacha asked me to try to let Rubia do her own thing, easier said than done, this set is the result of a mixture of ‘self induced posing’ and ‘directed posing’. See here for the technique used to create the high key effect.

Bad lighting conditions (dark) which means high ISO settings, but a nice set after all.

 

Bedroom mood

ludwigdesmet_rs-3918

ludwigdesmet_rs-3928

ludwigdesmet_rs-3924

ludwigdesmet_rs-3938

ludwigdesmet_rs-3934

ludwigdesmet_rs-3948

All images Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 A DG

1/60 f2.2 ISO 2000

Thank you for watching, come again soon,

ludwig

www.rubiasworld.com

www.sachaleyendecker.com

Hey Taxi ! …

Analog, beauty, Personal Pictures, street

I cannot prevent this happy feeling coming back when I start thinking about this session.

We were all in a great mood, the weather was excellent (remember, way too hot today) and Erika was more than happy playing the roles I gave her. I asked her to be the lazy tourist in our Brussels most upscale shopping lane, the Avenue Louise.

Nathalie managed to fix a taxi driver willing to cooperate for some nice shots too.

All images shot on Rolleiflex 3.5, Kodak T-Max100

Thanks to Erika Albonetti for being my model, her manager for carrying all the stuff she had, my wife Nathalie for being a splendid assistant and hairdresser …

Remember, all my images are available as a fine art print, so if you are still looking for a lasting present for Christmas or New Year, don’t look any further, scroll trough my blog, take a look at my portfolio pages and take your pick!

 

Hey Taxi ! …

ludwigdesmet_ea-3442-2  

ludwigdesmet_ea-3

ludwigdesmet_ea-7

ludwigdesmet_ea-23

ludwigdesmet_ea-8

ludwigdesmet_ea-24

ludwigdesmet_ea-25

ludwigdesmet_ea-4 

 

ludwigdesmet_ea-3460

 

thank you for watching,

see you again soon,

 

ludwig

 

Vic Toria – preview

Analog, beauty, people, Personal Pictures, portrait

I photographed this young lady in the grey and dull city of Charleroi, on a grey and dull day, but she proved to be all except grey and dull, we had a wonderful morning session, and made some great images together! Thank you Victoria!

– Victoria –

ludwigdesmet_victoria-2

Rolleiflex 3,5 with Ilford FP4 Plus film

thank you for watching,

ludwig

High Key made easy

beauty, Lightroom, Nude, Personal Pictures

hi there,

this below image had quite some succes on Facebook and different groups I published it onto. Actually people were asking about the way I did the high key development.

It was a rather straightforward and easy process, a little explanation below.

ludwigdesmet-3948

The lighting conditions where not good, NOT. 🙂

I needed an ISO setting of 2000 to be sure to have sharp images, that’s at least way over my usual limits. (I rather keep ISO settings below 800) You’ll see that the image has some noise in the shadow areas (like the throat area).

the original image looked like this: quite even light conditions, although the light was a little directional (from the left), there were no hard lights, no deep shadows.

ludwigdesmet-3948-2

I work in lightroom, my settings:

exposure: +2.10 / contrast: +40 / highlights: +67 / shadows: +36 / blacks: -42 / Clarity: -11 … that was about all I did. The image looks like this now:

ludwigdesmet-3948-3

next I added some light using a local brush with + exposure, to get rid of the remaining bed sheet shading. No big secrets, just add plenty of exposure to make things white.

At last I added some noise reduction to get rid of too much grainy noise in the shadow areas. …

I hope  you like the image, I certainly do.

The image was taken at a private tuition day with Sacha Leyendecker.(http://www.sacha-leyendecker.com) The model is Steffi Rubia Stringsi, from Brussels. The image was taken in an available light studio in Köln, Germany.

see you soon.

ludwig

Just a little word …

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

to tell you that a lot happened lately

I officially announced my www.renderhouse.eu customers that I will stop providing rendering services for them from januari 31, 2017. I am still looking for someone willing to continue this service, so my customer base is for sale. (3D rendered marketing illustrations and animations)

Hopefully this decision will free some space, energy and time for more photography in the nearby future. I have no idea where this will lead me to, but It is my absolute will to spend more time developing photography projects, continue giving my classes, and maybe start doing some workshops on a more regular basis.

It has not been an easy choice, since Renderhouse still provides a good income, but as you know I have been inspired a lot by the Holstee manifesto (see this post) , and I still think it is a good way to prevent boredom, burn-out, depression and other mental blockades.

…

next to that, I had the opportunity to work together with some afro-models, both great personalities to work with, one more experienced than the other, but they both did great and had a great story to tell.

I love this image, so does she.

• kamaliza •

ludwigdesmet_kd

 

Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm A DG 1.4

1/60 – f1.6 – ISO 320

thank you for watching

ludwig