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I had best friends Djuna and Shannety over for a little best friends photoshoot a couple of months back. When I asked them what to they had in mind as theme for the shoot, they cried out in excitement: “Let’s have a tea party!”.
Tea parties are still every little girl’s fantasy… Some things never change… Or do they?
Once in a little while, I come across the craziest of ideas. And usually they are worthwhile to try. Usually, when I share that idea with model Daria, she says “yes!” to modeling for it. And she does without flinching. She was not even backing down when I said I had the crazy idea to have her pose with a beautiful fresh octopus.
It was a lot of fun to do this. Both Daria and I thought it was a lot of fun. I think I might do just another shoot like this in 2020. If you’re a model and you think you’re up for it, drop me a line.
Once a year the skies over the small airfield of Sanicole fills with the thunderous noise of airplanes of all shapes and sizes. Supported by their friends of BAF airbase Kleine Brogel they stage a great airshow on Friday and Sunday. And in most cases a spottersday on Saturday.
Obviously, there is displays by the components of the Belgian Air Force like the Red Devils–one of my personal favorites–and our F-16 solo display.
But you also get to see airplanes that you don’t get to see often in the skies over Belgium, like this Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet and Sukhoi Su-27. And one of a kind formations too.
Armed forces all over Europe are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Europe. Our own Belgian Air Force his painted liberation stripes on F-16’s of 349 SQN and 350 SQN and a C-130. It is real nice to see those Fighting Falcons of 349 SQN and 350 SQN–2 squadrons that originate in the RAF–in liberation stripes.
We should never forget that we owe 75 years of peace, freedom and prosperity to the gallant men and women that fought in WWII. They were the soldiers on the beaches of Normandy and in the dessert of Africa, the nurses in shimmy little field hospitals, the sailors at Pearl Harbor and across the Pacific. And they were the pilots and bombers that manned Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress like Sally B on bombing raids over Germany.
And certainly don’t forget the little fighter buddies that escorted and protected the bombers en route to their bombing raids. The English build Supermarine Spitfire reigned the skies over Europe, and the North American P-51 Mustang definitely helped win the war in the Pacific theater.
But to me, the absolute highlight of the show was the flypast of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey. It was the 1st time that this mix between an airplane and a helicopter visited a Belgian airshow. And I happen to think that it is an amazing airplane.
Sanicole airshow spans over 2 days. Since about 8 years they have a 2 hour show on Friday night next to their long running Sunday show. One of the coolest participants on Friday night, is Otto the Helicopter. His show is like New Year’s Eve and the 4th of July rolled into 1.
Earlier this year, I saw a note from Simone at Dazzled Designs Latex calling for curvy models to showcase some of her designs. I replied that I had a shoot planned with Gaëlle, a gorgeous curvy model, a few weeks later and we would love to work with her designs. A couple of mails went back and forth to make arrangements. Simone sent us this absolutely stunning set: a zebra latex halter bra & high cut, high waist panties.
Thank you so much for the opportunity Simone! I still feel honored to have worked with your designs. Even though you’re retiring your shop, I’m sure we will meet again somewhere up the road. And of course a big thank you to Gaëlle for modeling for me.
If it comes down to doin’ a classic and timeless beauty portrait, I think this is the most classic and timeless I can come up with. My lovely friend Shannety sat down with me for a portrait inspired by the paintings of Flemish Master Peter Paul Rubens.
Thank you Britt for the awesome make-up!
Ingredients for a fun pic: a couple of gallons of milk, half a box of Froot Loops, a bikini from C&A and a model that is crazy enough to bring it all together. So, meet Annelies! She came up with the idea and she pulled it off in style.
I understand everyone’s infatuation with that little black dress after working with Delphine in my photo studio a while back. Doesn’t she look beautiful in this little black latex dress by Eustratia?
I recently bought a Canon PowerShot G7X mkII. I have not owned a point-and-shoot camera for a very long time. The last one I had, was a Canon PowerShot A95.
I was tired of hauling around my big Canon dSLR just to take snapshots. When I go location scouting or out with friends the dSLR is often too much of a hassle. Even on weekend trips to places where I go often, there’s no reason to have that dSLR on me all the time. And I was increasingly dissatisfied with the photos from my iPhone in low light conditions.
So I was on the look out for a small camera that would fit in the back pocket of my pants. It had to be able to shoot RAW, 1920 x 1080 video and shoot decent quality photos at high ISO. I would like to transfer the phots directly to my iPhone over WiFi. I wanted an articulating LCD screen for vlogging and selfies .
As far I was concerned it had to be a Canon camera. I am a happy Canon shooter for almost 20 years now and I am familiar with the menus, the icons on the buttons and the general look and feel of Canon cameras. It seemed the obvious choice. And after some careful consideration I bought the Canon PowerShot G7X mkII.
So far, I’m quite happy with the camera. It’s small but it’s not one of those lightweight thingies so it really feels good in my hands. And with the f/1.8-2.8 zoom lens and decent high ISO quality, it is far better suited for snapshot at concerts than my iPhone.
Another advantage of this little camera is that there’s an underwater housing for it that does not cost a fortune. I am no underwater photographer and I have no desire to become one. But I have some ideas for photo shoots around the a pool and having that underwater housing adds some opportunities to those shoots.
It has been a little quiet on the photography front this year. I don’t spend as much time behind the camera as I would like. And I am spending way not enough time sharing my work. Too much other priorities I’m afraid.
The little time I did spend in my studio had me revisit an old love: the all-white set. I did some work with Lynn in the all-white set in January and with Alexandra somewhere in May. Let me share my favorite pic from that shoot.
My photography workflow on the desktop is centered around Adobe Lightroom. I shoot with my Canon and GoPro camera’s, import the files to LR and start my editing and retouching process there. I insist on having all my photos–the photos I made myself that is–in one place. And that definitely includes photos made with my iPhone. It as a camera that is as good as any, and I take my iPhoneography serious.
Since the release of Lightroom CC for iPhone, my workflow for taking photos with my iPhone, I will pretty much the same. LR Mobile automatically synchronizes to LR on the desktop and helps me to keep all my photos in one place.
Setting up sync is easy: Adobe has step-by-step instructions to help you with that.
I have Sync Only Over WiFi turned on in LR Mobile. Every time my iPhone connects to a WiFi network, my photos get uploaded automatically. I don’t want to upload my photos over a 3G or 4G data connection. Photos made with an iPhone have become quite large. Uploading them over my data connection would burn through my data bundle in no time.
I use the camera inside LR Mobile as much as I can. I have it set to shooting in RAW at the highest quality. I have set it up once and then I never touch it again so I know every shot I take will be at the highest quality available.
Once you’ve got sync and the picture quality setup, just hit the little camera icon LR Mobile’s home screen and fire away. Oh btw, soon enough you will realize the power of LR Mobile’s camera. But I’m not getting into details there.
I often edit the photos I make with my iPhone in Lightroom CC, export to my iPhone’s camera roll and publish to social media. Lightroom ‘s controls for editing are very similar to Lightroom Classic on the desktop as you can see from the illustration above. And that is a big plus for me: I know the LR tools quite good, so editing on Lightroom CC is easy. Also, I can start to edit on my iPhone and continue on my laptop without loosing any work or time because your edits are synced in both directions as you make them.
I just love the seamless interaction between Lightroom CC on my phone and on the desktop version.
I still use Hipstamatic quite often too to make photos with my iPhone. I like their endless possibilities to style a photo right in the app. So, what about those photos? And what about the photos you shoot with any other apps? Should you just leave them on your phone or should you transfer them to your archive with the rest of your photos? As far as I am concerned, the answer is quite clearly to archive them like you would with all your other photos!
I used to synchronize the photos from my iPhone’s camera roll to my Dropbox on my phone and then pick them up on my desktop and import them in Lightroom. It works perfect that way. I still have that workflow in place as a backup btw.
But Lightroom CC has made it a little easier. Right inLightroom CC’s home screen, at the bottom, there’s a Camera Roll button that will let you import your photos from your camera roll to Lightroom CC.