All posts filed under: Community

A question, a gust, and a boat: New talent enters the scene

No flash, no studio. Here’s how three Capture One RAW Talent winners made their work and shared something true to themselves.   Three winning projects. One is a set of portraits built around a single uncomfortable question. One is about the draft of air that moves through a subway passage. One is about people who live on boats.   On paper they share nothing. In practice, none of the three used a flash. All three found their subject somewhere they had already walked past a hundred times. And two of them came out of the London Underground.   We asked each of them how the work happened.   Jenny Liao: Probe Jenny Liao was an oral surgeon before leaving the profession to study photography at the University of the Arts London. Now based in China, she built Probe around a question she had wanted to ask other people for years, having once struggled to answer it herself.   “Is there a trait that has often been discouraged or undervalued throughout your life, but that you still choose to keep?”   Every …

Self Portraiture: the Lens of the Heart

I’ve always had a strong sense of direction. That was the problem. What if after 7 long days trudging through the deep woods, you discovered the compass that had been guiding your every step was actually broken? You’d realize you were lost. It wasn’t until 7 years into my creative career that I discovered I was utterly and completely lost. I was operating with a broken compass. I had a strong sense of direction, it was just the wrong direction. If you are headed in the wrong direction, the sooner you stop and turn back, is actually when you begin to make real progress. It wasn’t until I picked up a camera and started taking self portraits did I begin to find the way. The most important lesson I’ve learned is this: what matters more than anything a photographer has in their kit is the heart from which they create. I was working in the movie industry pursuing the American Dream: appearing really busy and successful on Instagram and trying to be the envy of …

Behind the feature: Negative Film Conversion in Capture One

If one thing is clear, film photography is not dead. We see it across genres, from commercial fashion photography to enthusiast communities. So, it’s perhaps not a coincidence that Negative Film Conversion has been one of our most requested features.  Last year, we got to it.   Now, let’s explore how the solution came to life, how it was designed, what needed to be right, and who we collaborated with to bring it to market.  Designing the feature: Capture sets the foundation  When scanning and converting film, the earliest decisions in the workflow have a lasting impact. That means the quality of the conversion depends heavily on how the negative is captured. To get the best starting point, the goal is to extract as much information as possible from the film, which means maximizing dynamic range and minimizing digital noise during scanning.  A camera-based scanning setup with a stable film carrier helps keep the negative sharp, while an even, consistent light source ensures uniform exposure across the frame. When the camera is tethered to Capture One, exposure warnings make it easy to immediately see whether a capture is over- or underexposed, …

Why observation is a photographer’s greatest material

Tom Barreto is a Brazilian photographer and director whose work balances technical precision with emotional sensitivity. Born in Taubaté and now based in São Paulo, he has built a career spanning fashion, beauty, advertising, and personal projects, creating images defined by choreographed light, atmosphere, and a deep sense of humanity.  His portfolio includes campaigns for Dior Beauty, Fendi, Arezzo, and Bvlgari, alongside collaborations with artists such as IZA, Fernanda Torres, and Marina Ruy Barbosa. His work has appeared in global publications including Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, and Numéro Netherlands.   Tom’s practice goes beyond creating imagery. At its core is a philosophy rooted in observation: of people, of everyday life, and of the quiet tensions that exist beneath the surface. It’s this mindset that shapes how he approaches storytelling, navigates uncertainty, and maintains a consistent visual language across analog and digital workflows.  In our chat below, Tom reflects on why observation is a photographer’s most valuable material, how he trains his eye away from the camera, and what keeps him grounded when the industry feels unstable. He also shares insights into his creative process, the role of controlled chaos in his work, and how …