Category:Photography
Meet Ines. This beautiful young lady caught my attention during the semi-finals of Miss Fashion earlier this year. I told her I liked her radiant smile, and asked if she would fancy a photo shoot with me. She accepted my invitation.
Even though she did not have a lot of experience with modeling, she did well. It was was actually very easy to work with her. Not only does Ines have a pretty face and a radiant smile, she also turns out the be very nice too.
If she agrees, I will happily collaborate with her a couple of times in 2016.
Limu salad is a Hawaiian side dish, often served with as a side with Poke. Traditionally, Limu salad is made with fresh seaweed–after all limu is the Hawaiian word for seaweed–but as that is hard to find in Belgium, I replaced the seaweed with samphire.
It is a simple recipe that will get you a very tasty salad on the table in minutes.
Preparation method: (serves 2)
Blanch the samphire for a minute or 2 in boiling water and refresh it right away in an ice bath to keep it vibrant green and crispy. When cooled, drain. Half the cherry tomatoes, cut the onion and the cucumber is strips. Add the veggies to a bowl and mix.
For the dressing, crush the garlic and the pink rock salt in a pestle and mortar to a paste. Add the sherry vingear and the Shoyu sauce and fresh chili pepper to taste. Shoyu sauce should be available from Asian specialty stores but you could replace it with soy sauce if you want.
Dress the veggies with the dressing right before serving. That will keep the veggies nice and crunchy, and prevent them from discoloring.
Ingredients:
- 100gr samphire
- small white onion
- 5 or 6 cherry tomatoes in various colors
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 tea spoon of (Hawaiian) pink rock salt
- 2 table spoons of Shoyu sauce
- 2 table spoons of sherry vingear
- chili peper
I have a busy schedule the next couple of months: between work, redecorating, my travel plans, and the planned photo shoots, there won’t be a lot of time for a lot more plans. And it pains me to see that I have nothing planned with the lovely Elise. I must really do something about that. And for now, I’ll just have to settle for this pic from our latest portrait session.
About a week ago, I wrote about how much fun I had a photo shoot with Elise in Antwerp. She wasn’t the only model I got to work with that day. I was also fortunate enough to have a little portrait session with Laura.
The weather had turned against us and we had sought shelter from the rain in Kavka. The soft light that flows through their glass wall, was perfect to shoot a couple of stunning portraits. Again: thank you to Karin and Liesbet for styling and makeup. And of course a very big thank you to Laura for working with me.
The day started a bit in a rut: bad weather and logistical problems forced us to change our plans to shoot outdoors. After events location Hof Ten Steen and Annelies came to the rescue, everything turned around. Hof Ten Steen was kind enough the let us use their very elegant location for our shoot and get out of the rain. And Annelies was overly kind when she turned up in a moments notice to come and model.
We had not worked together before, but this 1st meeting was a very pleasant one: she was very enthusiastic and fun to work with. Those are the sort of 1st encounters that make me smile. Thank you Annelies and I will see you soon!
The team of Benelux Model Awards and their resident photographers, took couple of their models to Antwerp for a shoot around the city a couple of weeks ago. And that meant I got to work with the lovely Elise again. We went strolling around, no fancy flashes, no staged studio setups, just me and my camera and the talented Elise. And this is what we got when we came back:
Thank you–as always–Elise for working with me, and thank you Liesbet Liekens for the makeup and Karin Nuyts for the styling.
Oh well, it wasn’t all that late. We actually shot this around sunset, but that doesn’t sound quite as exciting, does it? And a photoshoot with William Wilde‘s beautiful latex swimwear in a jacuzzi is absolutely exciting. And Evelien pulled it off brilliantly. Maybe I should have brought her a glass of champagne?
I don’t do composites in Photoshop very often. Still trying to make it work for myself and therefor I don’t show them too often. I do wanna share my latests attempt though. I am very pleased with the result.
My favorite model Shannety wore this awesome latex dress in soft pink by William Wilde on our last photo shoot. And after I was done, I dug up a couple of stock images from iStock, my favorite stock photo site. I’ve been ready up on how to make good photos of the milky way and I always have New York City on my mind. That got me inspired to do this composite.
I did a very quick and easy mascarpone dessert. A perfect ending to any meal, especially for a lover of Jack Daniel’s like me. Coffee anyone?
This is how I made it (serves 5):
Preparation method:
Put the mascarpone cheese in a bowl and beat it with a wooden spoon until it becomes soft. Add the chopped walnuts, vanilla sugar and the Jack Daniel’s whiskey. Mix until combined. Spoon into a glass and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours to let it set. It that easy or what?
A little side note: you can of course use store bought vanilla sugar, but it is so easy, you should make your own. Take a glass jar, fill it with sugar and as you use vanilla in your other recipes, add the used vanilla pods to the jar. After about 2 months, the sugar becomes infused with the vanilla and is ready to use. Keep on adding your used vanilla pods to the jar and don’t forget to top up with new sugar from time to time.
Ingredients:
- 500gr mascarpone cheese
- 50gr walnuts, chopped
- 5 table spoons of vanilla sugar
- 30ml Jack Daniel’s whiskey
A week before we headed down to the Ardennes for our tropical paradise shoot, Lizzy was at my studio to get back some of her rhythm. She had not been in front of a camera for some time, and she wanted to be ready for the day trip to the South of Belgium.
It gave me another opportunity to continue to experiment with color gels. When one of my strobes misfired, I had this beautiful silhouette of Lizy roll out of my camera. I used the photo as a teaser on social media, and asked my friends: “Who’s That Girl?”
It took’em a while to realize it was the beautiful Lizzy. But when I showed them this photo, they knew immediately. And I could have sworn Lizzy looked like Jane Fonda in the movie Barbarella. What do you think?
