Canon 5Ds with Canon 135mm f2.0
1/50s f2.8 ISO320
thank you for watching,
soon two exhibit reviews and a Valentine story 🙂
best,
ludwig
from the same series as ‘Cyperus Papyrus’ with Kate_Ri as a model.
• Rainforest Girl •
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
a single image post.
beautiful Kate in the botanic greenhouse.
“Cyperus Papyrus”, named after the plant flower
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
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 •
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
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
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 ! …
thank you for watching,
see you again soon,
ludwig
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 –
Rolleiflex 3,5 with Ilford FP4 Plus film
thank you for watching,
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
a first one from a series of analog images I did with Ava
too hot outside, we fled for the cool interior of the chateau. The atmosphere was great, the castle was quiet, Ava was feeling comfortable. Some of the main ingredients for a great shoot. The models, although more accustomed to getting undressed than any other person, still prefer a quiet, unbothered atmosphere. There’s nothing more disturbing than people hopping in at unforeseen moments. A kind of understanding builds between model and photographer (and eventually assistants, make up artists etc …) and this makes intimate pictures possible. Thank you Ava for your confidence, and for being my model during this shoot.
• La dame du château •
model and make up: Ava Lacour
Hair and assistance: Nathalie
Shot on location in Tournai, Belgium
Rolleiflex 3,5 TLR on Kodak T-Max400 film.
all images © ludwig desmet
thank you for watching.