Rolleiflex 3.5 – Kodak TMax400 film
shot on a deserted very early morning beach in Corsica.
Model: Carlotta Kah
Assistant: Nathalie Renard
We met at my last exhibit in Ronse. She’s not trying to hide her baldness, and wears it with pride. We agreed on a cooperation, she loved the pictures.
Alopecia is a disease that results in partial or total hair loss, for Marlies it is total.
Make up: Heidi
Model: Marlies
Shot in my atelier in Ronse/Belgium. It has been a long time since I used my studio flashes. This was the first time in my re-organized studio space.
A photoshoot for your own, please contact me at ludwig -at- ludwigdesmet -dot- com
all images shot on Canon 5Ds, with Canon 100mm f2.8 L IS Macro
thank you for watching, please come again soon, there’s a lot to publish, with landscape images from Scotland, Corsica, some more beauty shoots etcetera, …
Ludwig
• Lady Madonna •
shot today in a remote castle in Tournai, Belgium,
lots of thanks to the owner of the place, and to my model of course.
sometimes all falls into place and beauty is the result of it.
Model and make up: Eva Evian
styling and photography: Ludwig Desmet
shot on Canon 5Ds with Canon 135mm f2 – ISO 200 f2.8 1/250s
thank you for watching,
Ludwig
Goodlightmagazine, an online magazine specialised in photography lighting techniques has published an article by me about photographing nudes with available light. It contains a lot of examples, what to look for in a location, some basic rule explanations and very well crafted light diagrams.
make sure to check it out here: http://www.goodlightmag.c
just fill in your email address and you’ll be granted a free download of the current issue.
Personally I’m not very fond of the magazine layout, but the content is very good 😉
a sample of the first two pages of this 9 page editorial below:
best,
Ludwig
… it is something I try to repeat to myself every day
the exhibit was good, a lot of people passed by to see it, despite the very good weather we had in these weeks. It was a pleasure to talk to so many people about photography in general, my work in particular. I have received compliments, appraisal and suggestions, they are all welcome. Still, doing what I do remains an investment in time, energy, money and other resources so I have to stand firm and not surrender.
the quote is by Abraham Lincoln.
• be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm •
image details:
model: Elise
Make up: Heidi
Assistance: Nathalie
Photography: ludwig desmet
Canon 5Ds with Canon 135mm f2.0
1/125s f2.0 ISO 100
Hello there on this very first day of the year, I would like to wish everybody a very good start, good health and some dreams that get you moving.
A second ‘you’ to love, family and friends to care about, a safe home and a world that is ruled by peace.
2016 has been quite a busy year in photography for me, with three exhibits, a lot of photo shoots, and some portfolio presentations here and there. All this next to my daytime job and teaching evening classes, educating two boys and keeping the wife happy 😉 … quite busy indeed.
You have been an amazing audience in 2016, that is for sure. Since I switched this blog over to this domain (late january) it has registered over 45.000 (!) visitors and over 325.000 clicks. I would like to thank you all for this. What is even more fulfilling is the fact that my works starts to find its way to people’s home interiors. This means a lot to me, and certainly not only the small revenue coming from these sales.
Some images I gladly remember from 2016 to keep you warm until the new images for 2017 arrive.
I hope to see you all back this year, I held back some beautiful images from my latest shoots to start with in 2017. Also I bought some new gear that I will review here soon. Don’t hesitate to make comments, ask questions, … and keep enjoying beauty.
Happy New Year !!!
ludwig
one more before Christmas …
a tribute to feminine beauty, to art, to nature
• my body my double •
See you next week with an overview of my year in photography, some numbers and memories from 2016. Happy Christmas everybody and take care!
Ludwig
image details: Canon 5Ds with Canon 17-40mm f4 – 1/50s f4.0 ISO200
shot on location in the Brussels area, model and make up: Kate Ri
with Rubia
These images were taken on a ‘available light’ workshop with Sacha Leyendecker in Köln.
He has a great available light studio, and gives plenty workshops throughout the year. Be sure to check his site here. Main goal of this one on one training day was to review my habits and to try to learn some more about light usage. I made use of the available -lockers-on-wheels for this setting and Rubia acted perfectly as a stand in worker. All images Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG A. All images f1.6 at 1000ISO, varying shutter speeds.
Model and make up: Steffi Rubia Stringsi
photography by me
thank you for watching.
ludwig
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
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
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.
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.
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:
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
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 •
Canon 5Ds with Sigma 50mm A DG 1.4
1/60 – f1.6 – ISO 320
thank you for watching
ludwig