The male nude, long awaited by female fans but an absolute premiere for me

Nude, studio

I admit, I am attracted to women more than men, that’s nature I suppose.

On the other hand, I rarely had the request for doing male nudes, until now. For me this was a premiere and an interesting experiment. Although I felt a little lost in what to photograph, and in the poses to work on, still I think we did a good session together. My model wanted to stay anonymous in the images, so that was a limitation to take into account.

I worked mainly with a low-key approach, but it was a continuous search for angles and light settings. We also experimented with some body lotion, and although I found it too greasy it did give different results.

Happy viewing, pls leave me your thoughts and comments below.

Ludwig

Studio Light setup

studio, studio light setup, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized

a long time ago I made some studio setup diagrams for this blog, … time to make a new one. First the image, it dates from a while ago, last fall I invited two friends to do some studio work. I rarely use my studio equipment for light, but in winter times it can be handy to have an alternative to available light sometimes.

the image:

I wanted Steven to get some sort of gangster look, cool looking, hood, sunglasses …

I wanted a soft light and deep shadows under the hood, so I went for some sort of symmetrical light setup, using two studio flashes with 60x60cm softboxes, and two large reflector panels to even enlarge the light source.

The setup:

it was only a matter of finding the good ‘depth’ position of the model, to create just enough light on the face, and keep the light only on the front.

another one without the hood:

 

thanks for watching, come again soon,

Ludwig

Male model – Urban style

beauty, Personal Pictures

Hi,

It took a while since my last post, sorry for that. The exhibit is running fine but it is taking a lot of my time in-between classes and jobs. I get good reactions, I sold about 10 limited edition books for now, and we have two more weeks coming. The exhibit ends on nov. 17th. Hurry if you still want to get a look inside this wonderful early 20th century house. Contact if you need more details, but you should be able to find them in my earlier posts.

A while ago I did another model shoot, this time for a male model. Not my usual thing, but when people ask me, then – why not? I permitted myself some developing styles I normally don’t use. A male model can have some more contrasty – edgy style developing than a female model (in my opinion of course) We worked in different locations, some of my usual ones, but also outside at the Ronse train station. Actually I can work about everywhere as a photographer, especially if my model is fully clothed, outside is fine, even in colder weather. The model is Bjorn, thank you Bjorn.

I hope you like the results. If you have any questions or remarks, pls drop a line.

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-003

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-001

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-002

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-004

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-005

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-006

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-007

Ludwig Desmet BjornII-008

Workshop Bert Stephani

Internet tips and tricks, Tips and Tricks

Hi,

Last week I had the chance to follow the workshop ‘advanced speedlight techniques’ with Bert Stephani, contemporary portrait and fashion photographer from Steenokkerzeel, near Brussels.
There were three participants, of the four spots available. We had some coffee to start with, typically Bert I guess. 😉
Bert is easy going, cool, relax and above all, willing to share his experience. We had an interesting day, full of practical tricks and tips.

Some of the lessons learnt:

• When setting up a light situation, use your hand as a stand in for your model. It’s freely available, and never bored with your tweaking lights over and over again. In the meantime, your model can freshen up or relax a while.
• When setting up a combined available/flash light setting, first expose for the available light, then the flash, and last but not least, take pictures.
• When taking pictures with a model, encourage your model, talk it trough the shoot, give clear posing instructions, … introduce mini-breaks from time to time to make your model relax, and to offer yourself some time to think about new ideas. Don’t break the posing flow or the contact between yourself and your model by looking at the results. When your light setup has been setup well, all images should be fine afterwards.
• Be relaxed and confident as a photographer. Whatever your mental status is, it reflects on your subject and in your images.
• Work your light situation in function of the story you want to tell.
• Don’t give workshop instructions and bake sandwiches at the same time. (first bakery products got carbonized)

Some of the strong points of the workshop:
• Bert has a large studio space – the barn – , offering plenty of possibilities, different light situations, props, …
• We could freely ask for personal advice on challenging projects and thus influence on the content of the workshop.
• The atmosphere is cool and informal

Some of the weak points of the workshop: Sorry Bert if this bothers you, I feel like I need to be complete for my readers.
• The workshop seemed not prepared and rather un-structured and slow-paced. I don’t know if this is typical for Bert’s workshops, or just on this particular occasion.
• Workshop was marketed ‘including teaching, model fee and bread lunch’, the teaching was there, the bread lunch too, but there was no model, so participants had to stand in as a model for the other participants. I have no problem with modeling as such, but it limits your ‘photography time’ during the day, and on our last ‘assignment’ only one person could be the photographer, so neither me nor the third participant had images from this setup. As a participant I felt I had not the same level of ‘hands on experience’ during the teaching, when I was acting as a subject.

some images taken during the workshop:

shoot with kids

people

did a shot today with my sons and some nephews.

They all managed to model like a pro for about 5 minutes each. The pictures are taken in an attic of a typical industrial building, with glass panels on the left side. I hung a large with cloth on the right to get some light bounced back onto the shadow side.

Some results, all taken on EOS 5DII with 135mm f2:

martin portrait