photographer
I haven't been posting any blogposts this year, not because I didn't want to, but because I haven't taken any photos. Much like last year all flying events were cancelled and traveling was postponed until the second half of the year. So you can imagine I was happy when I was invited to shoot a… Continue reading FIRST SHOOT OF THE YEAR: DUCATI PANIGALE V4SP
It's almost a year since the pandemic started and it's starting to look like 2021 will be yet another year without much traveling or events. As an aviation photographer it's quite problematic as we're dependent on airshows to be able to organize big air to air projects. In 2020 I realized I will have to… Continue reading SHOOTING THE GTC FOR MERCEDES-AMG
It's December 2020 and we're in lockdown 2.0. Although it's much more relaxed than the first time, it's still not possible to do basically anything. To top things off our world trip for 2021 is already cancelled. I'm still hoping to be able to do a couple of air to air projects in the summer… Continue reading GOING THROUGH THE ARCHIVES
After months of sitting at home and many cancelled travels I managed to go to Normandy for a couple of days and do a little road trip. The plan was to stay at Rouen and then travel from there to several other cities and locations. We hadn't done much research so I didn't really know… Continue reading ROAD TRIP IN NORMANDY
I've always been an aviation kind of guy. Cars interest me in an aesthetic way, but that's about it. I've done a couple of automotive shoots over the past years and I have really come to enjoy it. So I was happy when I was contacted by Mercedes AMG Belgium if I would be interested… Continue reading SHOOTING FOR MERCEDES AMG
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blogpost about how I photographed my evening walks during the Corona lockdown. At that time I wasn't sure what I would do with the images. All my attention was focussed on making a book about my aviation photography. Since I wanted to test the printservice and the… Continue reading CANCELLED
How do I photograph a lockdown? I asked myself that question when the lockdown started here in Belgium around the 15th of March. I knew from the beginning that I wouldn't be able to shoot any documentary work in hospitals or anything. So I thought I'd end up with a series about emptiness. You know,… Continue reading HOW DO YOU PHOTOGRAPH A LOCKDOWN?
Although myself and everyone I know are still healthy, Corona still pretty much fucked up my year. Since all airshows are cancelled so are all the photo flying projects in July. So instead of flying in the UK for two weeks, I'll be sitting at home. And also my trip around the world in July-August… Continue reading RE-EDITING OLD PHOTOS DURING CORONA QUARANTINE
Last blogpost I made was about shooting with a Kodak Disposable camera. That post focussed on what I learned and some of the experiences I had shooting with the camera. This one will focus on editing the scanned film. The editing is done in Lightroom and as you can see in the videos below it… Continue reading HOW I EDIT SCANNED FILM IN LIGHTROOM
A couple of months ago I saw an advertisement for a Kodak Funsaver disposable camera. It was priced at 11 euros and because it seemed cheap I ordered one. Except for Polaroid I never photograph with anything else than digital cameras, so I was excited to see how I would like this. Of course these… Continue reading WHAT I LEARNED SHOOTING A DISPOSABLE CAMERA
I recently bought a chest strap for my GoPro and tested it a couple of weeks ago while taking some pictures at a local botanical garden. I was finishing a roll on a Kodak disposable camera and also shot some polaroids on the SX-70. I'll make a full blogpost about the disposable soon, but I… Continue reading TESTING THE NEW GOPRO SETUP
I've been taking pictures with a Polaroid Impulse camera since about two years. A couple of months ago I borrowed an SX-70 camera from my brother and head out to New York for a short trip. It was a great opportunity to test this famous instant camera. The SX-70 is remarkably compact in comparison with… Continue reading SX-70 POLAROID CAMERA
2019 has been quite the year and with 2020 just a few days away I found it appropriate to share my favourite photos from the last 12 months. I feel my photography has grown a lot this year and I feel more confident in photographing my travels. I think most of my pictures are no… Continue reading MY FAVOURITE PHOTOS OF 2019
When I went to New York I expected to take a bunch of photos on Halloween and even though I knew I wouldn't be at the parade I still had an image in my head of what it could be. For halloween evening we had planned to go to a pumpkin festival about an hour… Continue reading HALLOWEEN IN NYC
This October I had the luck to visit New York for the second time. Visiting New York is always a treat, visiting on Halloween is even cooler. Besides this I was very happy to be able to explore the city again and take the pictures I felt I couldn't take last time I was there.… Continue reading NEW YORK 2015 VS. 2019
I used to shoot more aviation on the ground than in the air, but the past years the ground-air ratio slowly moved towards the air. Nowadays, when it comes to shooting aviation, I mostly shoot air to air pictures. And no matter how much fun it is to do these flights, I was very happy… Continue reading STORYTELLING IN AVIATION PHOTOGRAPHY
There's nothing so exciting in aviation photography as getting close to the planes. And no matter how much fun it is to stand between jets, it is more fun to have one on your wing. I had the luck to do air to air photo shoots for the last 10 years and even though it's… Continue reading STAYING CREATIVE IN AIR TO AIR PHOTOGRAPHY
The first day of my summer holidays I spent the evening shooting an '92 Porsche. Ever since I saw 'Drive' by Nicolas Winding Refn years ago, I wanted to do a shoot with neon lights, but it never happened until now. It was actually after showing pictures I found on Instagram of a Porsche shoot… Continue reading ’92 PORSCHE NEON BTS
In this series I'll post videos that show how I edit my photos. In this first short clip I show some very basic editing. Depending on the interest I'll post more of these that show more of the complex edits (selective editing, retouching, etc). First one is from a recent bike shoot. https://youtu.be/Et7yxOCf2sQ Thoughts,… Continue reading HOW I EDIT #1
For the past 5 years I have tried to gain a following on Instagram and failed miserably. It's only since about two years that my following grew above a couple of thousand. Since that first post in 2014 I have learned a lot and mostly that a beautiful feed rakes in more followers than one… Continue reading HOW TO CREATE AN INSTAGRAM AESTHETIC
The Nepal trip was one with meany memorable moments, a couple of near death experiences, a lot of waiting and, most importantly, a lot of flying. And what better place to fly than the peaks of the world: the Himalayas. In what follows I will focus on three separate flights we did that involved the… Continue reading FLYING IN THE HIMALAYAS
The blogpost below is about my personal experiences when I went flying at Lukla; Nepal. I had the luck to go there as a member of the Aviation PhotoCrew. There will be a full report at our website soon that will cover more of the background and will have more pictures by other members. I… Continue reading FLYING AT THE WORLDS DEADLIEST AIRPORT
It's strange to say, but everything I do in photography and basically in my free time, is thanks to a helicopter. And all that is now coming to an end. When I was 8 years old my parents took me to the annual airshow of Koksijde. As soon as I laid eyes on the Seaking… Continue reading A BEGINNING AND AN ENDING
On April 2, 2018 I was standing in Brussels Airport with my wife and good friend Eric. He wanted to go away for a few days and do some fun stuff. He asked me and my wife to join him on the trip. We had no clue yet where we were going, but he had… Continue reading BEST HONG KONG PHOTO SPOTS
I often get asked on Instagram how my photos of these airplanes in flight are made. The answer is less complicated than some expect but non the less quite spectacular. Taking air to air photos is not that hard from a photographic point, but logistically and organization wise it's more difficult. First of all there's… Continue reading HOW AIR TO AIR PHOTOS ARE MADE
Giel Sweertvaegher 