Oh my goodness – NSFW

Nude

I’m getting more and more visitors on my site, year after year for which I am thankful. It means my images appeal to at least a certain public. But I get less and less likes or comments on my images. Not that that really bothers me, but it made me think that we might not have made much process in accepting nudity in society, since R. Doisneau made this little secret setup capturing the public reactions to a painting depicting a nude woman in some art gallery’s vitrine.

“La femme indignée by R. Doisneau 1948”. There’s more images to be found on the internet. look for ‘le regard oblique’.

Dare to express the love for female beauty my friends. Nothing wrong with that 😉

while you are here reading, you might as well take a look at my galleries, some new images are added from time to time.

ludwig

wake up – self induced posing

beauty, Personal Pictures

There’s a lot going on on the internet about how to get your model in the right pose. Workshops, do’s and don’ts, streaming video’s, the basic rules for a good pose, etc. …

Now what if we forgot all about it, and just have the person in front of the lens completely be herself? That is what I tried a couple of weeks ago with two ‘recurring’ models. They both had been with me for a shoot before, so they more or less know how I work and what to expect. I explained them that I wanted a part of the shoot to be completely void of instructions from my side. After all, I am a man, and when I put my models in a pose, this is man-mind driven, and can never be completely natural. I asked them to ‘not seek’ me with their eyes, pretend as if I was not there, and just slowly wake up from the comfortable spot I gave them.

Confidence is a key-word I guess, in this kind of work, since they do not know what I want, they do not know what I see, and they do not know when I’m going to take a picture. They must be self-aware, at ease with the surrounding environment, with me and with the idea that they can just simply enjoy this moment of quietness and peace.

Self induced posing, it is 100% the woman in the pictures. All natural. I hope you like them. Thank you Justine.

The sun was slightly warming the place, it was quiet and nice, honestly I think she would have stayed in bed, but that wouldn’t have given us these nice pictures wouldn’t it.

thank you for watching, I have more images with Justine waiting to be published.

ludwig

Exhibit prints exposed – Gafodi

exhibition, Personal Pictures

For those who missed my latest exhibit at Gafodi Gavere, I have published the entire exhibit on my page ‘limited edition prints’ on this site. Go and Check it out.

Believe me, they are better in real life, but this may give you a good idea. 😉

see you soon,

Ludwig

Sudden gust of wind – Limited edition Print

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

New limited edition print ( 7 copies + 1 Artist Proof) available.

100 x 100 cm on Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta – finishing/framing on demand.

Sudden gust of wind

Pls. contact me for more information. Be quick, they’ll be gone before you know it. 😉

ludwig.

Pauline on film – NSFW

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures, photo gear

I told you before I would talk a bit more about the Rolleiflex I use for shooting on film.

The camera is a Twin Lens Reflex, built in the late 50’s, so the camera is about 60 years old.

The construction with the two lenses, of which the upper lens is for viewing only (viewing lens) and the lower lens is for taking the image (taking lens) has advantages and disadvantages. In comparison to the older camera’s that used flat film sheets, where one had to remove the matte focusing screen before putting in the film holder for taking the image, this camera allows to shoot multiple images without moving anything. There is a 45° tilted mirror behind the viewing lens, projecting a mirrored image on the horizontal focusing screen.

Of course viewfinder camera’s existed as well, but they had no visual reference of the focusing plane, or the sharpness of the subject when changing focus. A photographer using a viewfinder camera had to use the distance scale on the lens, and the not so trusty guesswork for camera to subject distance.

Both lenses of the this TLR move forward and backward while focussing, and so provide an identical image on the ground glass as the image to be expected on the film. Still, the smallest amount of inaccuracy of the lens focusing mechanism leads to bad focusing, and I believe this camera suffers at least some looseness in the forward-backward movement.

Dealing with this complex mechanism of focusing, meant also that these camera’s are mostly fixed focal length. Some camera’s came in different focal length versions, but camera’s with interchangeable lenses where very rare. (Except for the Mamiya C)

This camera comes with a 75 mm f3.5 lens, it also existed in a f2.8 version, usually much more expensive on the secondhand market. 75 mm on 6×6 film format has an equal viewing angle to a 38 mm lens on Full frame DSLR, or a 24 mm lens on a 1.6 crop camera, so a rather ‘wide-standard’ viewing angle.

The lens is certainly not paramount, and suffers heavily from flare, as can be seen in the images below (does somebody have a lens hood for this camera for me?). An aperture of 3.5 gives a good amount of image unsharpness on medium format. 2.8 would be nicer of course. The images lack a bit of contrast and sharpness.

Composing with the mirrored image on the focusing plane is a bit of a habit.

Shutter speed range is limited, from 2 seconds to 1/500th of a second, thus mostly limiting the wide open apertures in bright light. The mirror does not move, since it is not obstructing the film plane, so there are not vibrations from this side. Activating the shutter however demands some finger movement (unlike today’s DSLR’s where pushing the shutter entirely only takes some tenth of a millimeter) causing some hand stress and maybe movement unsharpness. Shutter speeds as long as 1/15th. of a second seem not possible to me without image shake. Maybe with some more experience.

The camera has a built in exposure meter, but it no longer works, so exposer should be metered with another camera, or with a hand held meter, I use the latter.

Film for this camera is widely available here in Belgium, both black and white and color film. Not sure about slides. Development is still available too, although it can take a while (1-2 weeks) before getting the negatives back. Scanning the negatives, as well as retouching them (from dust) is a tedious process.

The biggest advantages for me is that I spend more time composing, and checking out if everything is well in place before taking the image. It learns me to concentrate more on details, on exposure, on posing etc. … One roll of film equals 12 exposures, after that the fun is over. 😀 The fact that you see the image mirrored gives you a fresh view on your scene, revealing flaws in your image/composing remaining unnoticed as you set it up. (But I still have a lot to learn)

A second big advantage is that the images are square format. This gives me a more relaxed feeling when composing, and I believe that the images are more harmonious too. I kind of like this square format more and more. (This made me thinking about modifying a matte screen for my 5D mark II to indicate ‘square’ cropping).

changes I have had:

I had the original focusing screen replaced with a focusing screen with split prism and microprism focusing aids, and that adds to the accuracy of focussing with the camera. I also had the shutter speeds checked out by the same specialist repair shop that also changed the focusing screen.

To be continued. Enjoy this small portrait series I made with Pauline lately – Rolleiflex 3.5E – Tmax 400 film.

thank you for reading, see you soon,

Ludwig

Architectural photography – Shoes or No Shoes

architecture, Personal Pictures

if you are into fashion design, shoe design or if you have any kind of shoe fetish, you absolutely need to see this museum collection. Without spending too much words about it, it contains the largest ethnographic collection of shoes in the world, next to a vast collection of designers’ shoes and artists’ shoes. More info on the opening times and location: www.shoesornoshoes.com

I visited the place several times now, and I’m especially fond of the architectural qualities of the building. The building is constructed as a combination of hexagon shaped rooms. The main floor exhibition rooms have special north faced windows that assure a neutral light in any kind of weather. Credits for the architecture: original building (1973) : Emile Veranneman and Arch. Christiaan Vander Plaetse. Redesign (2008): Lode Uytterschaut, Johan Ketele and Rutger Davidts.

Last visit was with my architectural photography class from KISP. I never can deny the urge to take some photographs myself, in between tuition and guidance. The main purpose of this excursion was to emphasize on the link between the building and the surrounding area. My personal selection:

Images taken with Canon TS-E 24 mm f3.5 L II, except third image, taken with Canon EF 17-40 mm f 4.0 L. All on Canon 5D mark II.

Some images are HDR composites, some are stitched panoramic. (although they all are square 🙂 )

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to visit the place!

see you soon,

Ludwig

Digital publication – NIF magazine

beauty, Nude

Another set of images made it to the digital ‘Nude Is Fashion’ platform:

Lisa at the Mansion. From a shoot last summer, one of the last shoots I did at the Mansion. Now as an exclusive image series on NIFmagazine.

Link here

Pauline

beauty, Personal Pictures

Pauline studies to be a drama artist, and she added some drama to our last shoot. 🙂

A close up portrait.

1/160 at f2.8 ISO 160 Canon 5D II with Canon EF100mm f2.8 Macro IS

Sarah at Sabine’s house – the living room – nsfw

beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures

Part two of this shoot with Sarah. In the living room of this nice house.

A grey and wet day, difficult light in this house with dark accents and furniture, and relatively small windows.

I look for windows for the available light to fall maximally on my model, but then you are in a backlight situation, which makes it always difficult to not overexpose the background/underexpose the foreground.

A further problem with this is that you have a cool color temp from the outside (6500 or so) and a warm 3000 degrees Kelvin temp on the inside. Luckily we are able now to locally brush in color temperature in Lightroom now.

Two of the images are taken with somewhat further away from the window, with only some available tungsten light.

Sarah has some kind of ‘tristesse’ in how she looks at the camera, I’m not sure she realizes this herself. Maybe she will if she reads this blog. 😉

She also has amazingly long and beautiful legs and a nice figure. She is rather used to posing, but she managed to still pose in some natural way.

Canon 100 mm f 2.8 L Macro IS and Sigma 50 mm f 1.4. I’m happy I have a stabilized lens for these occasions. The 100 mm Macro allows to stretch shutter speed up to 1/25 th of a second, with no visible camera shake.

thank you for watching,

ludwig

Approaching Valentine’s day.

erotic, Nude, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

Handcuffs and blindfolds, they have nothing to do with submission or repression, but all with the fine art of lovemaking.

text by Greg Phillips

image © ludwig desmet

Model: Sarah

1/25 sec – f2.2 – sigma 50mm f1.4 DG Art on Canon 5D mark II

thank you for watching.

Ludwig

Dare you dare me …

Uncategorized

No words …

see you soon.

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

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

New court building in Ghent – architectural photography classes

architecture, Personal Pictures

Hello there,

as promised, some images of the new court building in Ghent.

architects Stéphane Beel and Lieven Achtergael, opened in 2007

I had lent my tripod to one of my students, so these images are not ‘top notch’, but they are well enough to show.

Normally you should never do architectural photography without a tripod. The advantages of a tripod are multiple:

It helps in fine tuning your camera position, a 3 way head is optimum for this.

It helps when light levels get low, a stable tripod allows using small apertures, even at dim light.

It allows for multiple exposures or bracketing exposure series, when you need to handle a too large dynamic range in your scene.

It slows you down, which I think is a good thing in architectural photography.

I use a Berlebach 2042 report tripod, which has a ball joint just beneath the 3-way head. This ball joint is of immense help in leveling out your tripod head. Both tripod and head are a heavy pack, but in the same respect very stable. I have been using it for about 4 years now, and it shows no signs of wear. In the image below, you should clearly see the ball joint in the tripods base. Oh, and it is the most beautiful type of tripod I have ever seen, with its solid ash wood legs.

The main goal for this evening was to concentrate on light and lighting, and again, these were taken without tripod. 😉

See you soon for the next series of images: Sanne at house Adelaide, the color version.

have a nice weekend, 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

I shot myself – Exhibit contest selection

contests, Personal Pictures

My image ‘I shot myself’ has been selected for display in the upcoming exhibit from darkroomgallery (Vermont USA).

Theme of the exhibit will be ‘mirror mirror’, a call for images was launched earlier this year.

The images for the exhibit were selected by Amy Arbus, daughter of the famous Diane Arbus.

I’m all proud 🙂

More information and the rest of the selected images can be found here: Mirror-Mirror

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 …