Domain name change – Romina

beauty, Personal Pictures

As all runs well, this domain should soon have its own name. I am taking steps to move the site to www.ludwigdesmet.com – the intention is that subscribers still get messages when new posts are made, but if you experience a longer-than-normal delay in new reminders from my side, something might have gone wrong. I’m not web guru by far, prepare for the worst.

please enjoy this first image from a shoot I did a couple of weeks ago. Romina has finished her studies in drama and theatre, has Italian roots, and was a pleasure to work with.

 

Romina

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Canon 5D mark II with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A

1/50s f2.5 ISO500

thank you for watching,

ludwig

My body is my temple – nsfw

Nude, Personal Pictures

She hesitated to agree with publishing this image, but she did. Thank you Jane. It was a pleasure to work with you, and you expressed gratitude to what we achieved together. I’m glad I could bring you confidence.

 

Jane, my body is my temple …

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© ludwig desmet

Canon 5D mark II with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A

1/30s f2.0 ISO100

Black – NSFW

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

a single image post.

I find it rather intimate and peaceful, expressing proud and stability.

 

 

‘BLACK’

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tomorrow I will show you the counterpart, same setting, same pose, same model, just I as a photographer have moved.

 

Technical details: Canon 135mm f2.0L at f2.2, 1/200s, ISO 320

thank you for watching, don’t forget to come back tomorrow for ‘WHITE’

ludwig

Summer has been too short

Nude, Personal Pictures

Hi,

I enjoyed working in my new location the last couple of weeks. It is spacious, very quiet and private, it has a lot of windows, and a large amount of possibilities for different shooting environments. Unfortunately the summer is swiftly passing away, and with the colder days coming in, models probably are going to get goose-bumps again. Difficult to retouch, not pleasant for the model.

That is what I’m missing the most in our Belgian climate. Rather than being half summer half winter, we only have 2 months of summer, the rest of the year is half fall half winter.

I had two shoots last Friday, you should get images from them very soon. This one is from earlier this summer.

Enjoy 🙂

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1/50s f2.0 ISO 320

Canon 5D II with Sigma 50 mm

come again soon,

ludwig

The Castle shoot – digital

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Nice environment, nice weather, nice model, …

first time in this place, and as I tend to not prepare so much for a shoot it is always a search for an approach. This place has tons of possibilities, …

Eline was worried about her figure, as a lot of women do. I’m happy that I have been able to surprise her with some eye-dropping images. What do you think?

All images Canon 5D II with sigma 50 mm f1.4 or Canon 135mm f2.0.

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thank you for watching,

ludwig desmet

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.

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  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

I scratched my focusing screen – Square crop on Canon 5D II

personal tips & tricks, photo gear

Since photographing with the Rolleiflex camera, I have enjoyed it so much that I wanted a square crop compositing aid on my Canon 5D mark II.

I had read about Katzeye optics on the internet, mailed them, but they were unable to make me a replacement focusing screen for the 5D II.

After searching the internet, an alternative option seemed to be unavailable.

I have been using a special focusing screen replacement for a while (Eg-S, also called super precision focusing screen), that has a better visual reference for the actual depth of field.

This has left me with two no longer used focusing screens (the original ones for my two camera’s), so I thought I’d give it a go.

Brute force and an ‘I don’t care’ mind is the only thing left 😀  so I decided to ‘scratch’ my focusing screen with square crop lines.

What you’ll need:

A focusing screen that is of no importance to you (one you can do absolutely without)

A needle

An iron ruler

A loupe

A fine marker pen

fine motor skills

some nerve.

Some pictures of the process (I’m not responsible for any camera abuse that might result from this blog post)

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the following steps will be needed :  (FS=Focusing screen)

1. With the help of the focusing screen replacement tool (delivered with the Canon focusing screen replacements) you will remove the FS.

2. With a fine marker put a small reference dot at 6mm from the edge of the ground surface of the FS, this is not the edge of the FS.

3. With a metal ruler and a sharp needle (any kind of sewing needle will do) just slightly scratch the ground surface of the FS parallel to the edge of the FS.

4. Do this on two sides (left and right)

5. Put back the FS in the camera, with the help of the provided tool.

Tadaaaah, two vertical lines in the ocular view. They give at least an idea of where the square crop will fall.

thank you for reading, remember, I take no responsibility for possible damage to your gear.

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.

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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.

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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.

Sensor cleaning

photo gear, Tips and Tricks

I’ve had my camera’s about 2 years/3 years now, and I never had the nerve to clean the sensor. I have always been afraid something might happen to the sensor surface while cleaning it. Till now.

Some weeks ago I went to a local shop buying the necessary equipment.

I received a bottle of Eclipse, optical cleaning fluid (www.photosol.com) and a box of Vswab Ultra MXD-100 from VisibleDust (12 pcs). Attention, you should always get the right swabs for your size of sensor. Full frame, aps-c x1.6 or aps-c x1.5 or aps-c x1.3, depending on your type of reflex camera. The bottle is good for at least a hundred sensor wipes, the box of swabs will be quickly gone, as I discovered quite soon. The swabs are individually packed in plastic foil, and should only be unpacked just before use. (the image below is after cleaning 2 sensors)

I’m not sure it’s the best tools around, but it’s the stuff they recommend. Since I have no experience with other makes, I can’t judge. One remark, it might be a good idea to use one of those static brushes, to wipe of loose dirt first, but I don’t have one, so I couldn’t use it.

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What I could judge, is how dirty my sensors were before cleaning.

The best thing to do to reveal dust on your sensor, is photographing an even surface (or a grey cloudy sky) and make sure you have your lens off focus (only possible in manual focus mode) dial in your smallest possible aperture value, and adapt shutter speed to have a slightly overexposed image. It should look something like this:

(ALL IMAGES CLICKABLE FOR BIGGER VIEW)

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this is an image of an overcast grey cloudy sky, f22 – 0,5 sec at ISO 100.

In Adobe lightroom 5, you can easily judge on how much dust you’ve gathered on your sensor by selecting the spot removal tool, and then checking the box visualizing spots just below the image. this turns your image into a black and white image, with all dust visible. (depending on the position of the visualization slider, you’ll see even the smallest dust spot)

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For those not working in Adobe Lightroom, in photoshop, you can similarly visualize the dust spots by putting a curve on your image, and putting the white and black point just left and right of your histogram. Since you have a low contrast image, your histogram should be rather small.

This is the first image of the other camera, with the above explained curve applied:

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So these definitely need cleaning.

How to proceed? (this is for Canon 5D II, but it should be fairly similar on any other system)

1. make sure your battery is fully charged.

2. Get your lens of of the camera

3. find the menu item that says sensor cleaning -> manual cleaning

4. the camera warns you that the sensor will be exposed for manual cleaning.

5. Make sure you work in a clean environment, and have everything ready (enough light to clearly see where you put your swab down, cleaning fluid, sensor cleaning swab, …)

6. push the ok button on your camera. The mirror locks in the up position, the shutter opens. This remains so until you turn off your camera. If your battery is well charged, that should give you plenty of time to clean your sensor.

7. put some drops of cleaning fluid onto the first swab, insert it gently into your camera house, and put it down on one short side of your sensor. If you bought the right set of swabs, it should neatly fit the width of your sensor.

8. gently sweep across the sensor till you reach the other end, flip it over and sweep back. (in this way, you use both sides of the swab, without the risk of re-disposing any dust from the first used side. It took a while till I found out that that is probably the best way to do it. you’ll see in the different stage images.)

9. gently lift the swab away from the sensor (when you have reached the starting point of course)

10. dispose the used swab, no use in re-using the swabs, they are full of sticky dirt now.

11. switch of the camera, this should close the shutter and lower the mirror

12. put a lens on, and check the results. Repeat if necessary.

I used four swabs per camera, that’s because I’m a total beginner in sensor cleaning. I feel comfortable now to say that 3, maybe even 2 swabs should do to clean a sensor.

result after cleaning: You’ll still notice some dirt spots, but I can live with that for now (it was late yesterday evening, and I had to eat 😉 )

Also have I set the visualize threshold high, so you can see even the smallest spot of dust.

Screen Shot 2014-01-06 at 11.07.33

Camera 2, before cleaning:

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And after cleaning:

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Not perfect, but for a first attempt very much ok with me.

see you soon, I’ll be posting another ‘at the Mansion’ shoot very shortly,

take care

Ludwig

Ines at the Mansion

beauty, exhibition, Personal Pictures

I love it when I get people in for a shoot that have absolutely no experience with modeling. They are so much easier to talk into a ‘natural behavior’ than the wannabe models that stick to the 10 poses they learnt by heart. Two weeks ago, Ines came to the Mansion. She travelled for about three hours by train to get here. Thank you Ines, for doing this effort for this shoot. You were a wonderful model, fun to work with, a beautiful, smooth skin and very open in conversation. All these things make her into a real ‘natural beauty’. She confessed she had gone trough about every post in this blog, before she decided to come to Ronse.

The Mansion is in full preparation for our upcoming group exhibit I talked about previously. This means a lot of works still going on, and a big rush to get the ground level ready for the exhibit, but also some new furniture items arriving now and then, and that is of course of great use for my photography.

I hope you like the images, one image from Ines will also be shown in the exhibit itself. I’ll make sure to post some images when the exhibit has opened.

thank you for reading

ludwig

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How to find a good location – shoot with Karen

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

Some people ask me about these locations I work in.

I have been into urban explorer photography (also called urbex) for a short period of time. I din’t really get far into this. Not that it didn’t please me, but modeling work pleases me more, because you work together with at least one other person to a result. There’s not much conversation possible with an abandoned building or a landscape. (another discipline in photography, that I still do from time to time)

In urbex, most of the locations are very abandoned, and you might get in with permission at rare occasions, but most of the time, you just don’t ask permission, don’t know who to ask to, or just simply don’t bother. This includes the risk of being ‘discovered’ by the owner, the housekeeper or even the police, … (never occurred to me 😉 )

As soon as I started doing model work, I convinced myself that it would not be a good idea getting the police behind my back whilst my model is working on the next intimate pose, or while she’s changing clothes, or some other awkward moment during the shoot. Finding locations is not easy, by far not. It has to be accessible, not too far driving from where you as a photographer are based (preferably), give plenty of light possibilities, give nice decorative possibilities etc. … And you need to get access at the times you want to shoot at.

My one and only advice in this matter is: Try to find the owner of the place, contact him or her, try to make a mutual beneficial agreement. Most people have shown great willingness whenever practically possible. I now have 4 different locations I regularly shoot in, and all 4 owners were very quickly sympathizing with the idea. I mostly offer free photo work – to some degree – if they would need any, be it for family or business matters.

This is what happened with the location of the shoot I’ll show you pictures of in this post:

While riding my motor trough the flemish ardennes (a part of our region called so because it resembles the ardennes – but actually it is more beautiful) I see this beautiful complex that seems like an old cloister, nursery school, orphanage, … and I decide to halt and look if I can find signs of people around.

After peeping trough some windows, knocking on the door, some kind of housekeeper gets his head out on the second floor, talking to me in a foreign language. (Being a Belgian citizen, I do speak and understand quite some languages, but clearly not this one) Impossible to talk to him, but he’s able to point me to a information panel hanging on the wall, that contains different phone numbers of the owner of the place. I have called the owner a couple of days later and she said:

“sure, no problem, I have been a model myself in my younger days. Just call me whenever you want to get in. When there are no groups (the location is rented as a summer camp house for big groups) you’re welcome.”

Easy as that, and something similar happened with the mansion, the old villa, the warehouse and the storage building. So, just ask, don’t ask for the impossible, be polite and be willing to offer some service in exchange. After that, be clear in your communication (when you want to shoot, for how long, with how many people, etc. …) and you’ll have a good chance for a lasting relationship.

One last remark about sharing locations with other photographers. Well, I’m very reluctant about that, and mostly for one reason. It is not because the owner granted me permission to shoot in a certain building, that he/she is also interested in receiving other photographers, or in being bothered by a different photographer every day, … Besides, the exchange offer they get from me, they won’t need it from another photographer, don’t they? 😉

So, enough about locations. I worked with Karen for the first time, first time in this new building too. The sky was cloudy, so there was really not much light inside. It required some searching, trying a lot of different angles, but we managed to get some really nice images after all. Karen told me afterwards “the pictures are really superb”. Thank you Karen.

All images taken with Canon 5D II at ISO 200 (except one at ISO 100), Lenses used in this selection: Canon EF 24mm f1.4 L II, Canon EF 50mm f1.4, Canon EF 85mm f1.8, Canon EF 135mm f2.0 L. All natural light.

happy viewing

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Any questions about this post, just ask!

Ludwig