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Paul Reiffer's new presets helps give your landscape photography a baseline to work from

Introducing Elevation Styles – Q&A with Paul Reiffer

Producing imagery that reflects the mood and feeling at the time of capture is of utmost importance, particularly when it comes to landscape photography and capturing vivid cityscapes.

Working with world-renowned photographer Paul Reiffer, the Elevation Styles pack was designed to ensure that your images retain the essence of the moment and bring decades of photographic experience to your images at the click of a button.

Learn more about Paul’s journey and how Elevation Styles takes your images to the next level.

So, why did you create Elevation Styles? Was there anything specific that inspired you to create them?

I have taught people how to use Capture One Pro for more than ten years and I see people frustrated by the same thing: they find it difficult to get the photo to look like how they saw it at the time.

Sometimes when we load the images onto a computer, we don’t necessarily see exactly what we thought was there, or how it felt to be there. So, we’ve built a fast-track to taking your picture from its raw ingredients to the actual memory of the scene.

How do you see these Styles aiding the workflow of Capture One Pro users?

These Styles are designed to get you to a point where you can essentially flick through and find a mood that fits the photo, without having to use twenty different adjustment sliders to get there.

They enable photographers to get to that baseline very quickly within a couple of clicks rather than having to reinvent the wheel every single time.

Four landscape images made using the Elevation Styles preset pack

Edit your images in one click, or get a base to make them your own with the Elevation Styles preset pack.

Sounds like the Styles speed the editing process up quite a bit – does that mean you also use them as part of your workflow?

Even up until last week, on every single image, I would go in and do the same thing individually. Now I can edit my images in one click, as opposed to about twenty.

The Styles get me to about 70% of where I want to be, and then I’ll tweak from there.

Would it be fair to say these Styles serve as an ‘education’ on how to edit landscape/cityscape images?

The Styles do some pretty smart stuff and nothing’s hidden.

I tell all my students, ‘don’t just use a Style, take it and tweak it to make your own.’ Look at what adjustments are being used and figure out why on earth we’re using the Skin Tool on a landscape.

How is the Skin Tone tool (found within the Color Editor) used in landscapes and cityscapes?

The Skin Tone tool has been a secret weapon in Capture One for years. Portrait photographers use it to fix unevenness in skin, but it can be used to fix unevenness in anything. It doesn’t matter what it is – it’s one of the most powerful tools in Capture One Pro.

Four cityscape images made using the Elevation Styles preset pack

Speaking of textures and sky, how do Elevation Styles assist in not overdoing adjustments?

I think the most ‘powerful’ adjustment that we do, is the Clarity in Vivacity. I think we hit something like ‘55’ – and that’s probably the heaviest you should ever be using that slider.

We’ve done the safety checks and made sure it’s not going to do anything bad to your picture. Nothing is pushed too far, and that’s the biggest thing that I see people make mistakes with, is that they push things too far.

Is there something that you’re particularly proud about achieving in this pack?

From a selfish point of view, I now use my own Styles as part of my workflow.

On a more technical level, creating a set of adjustments that works across a variety of images is challenging. It’s one of the reasons why the Styles are toned down a little bit, because on my own images, I could push quite a lot of that stuff further and it would be perfectly fine.

 

See amazing before and after tranformation with only one click using one of the Style presets by Paul Reiffer

Are there any other benefits to using Elevation Styles, or Styles in general?

The other major benefit is speed. If you want quick edits of landscapes that will give you a stylized output, then this does that for you in one click.

Styles allow you to spend more time on the detail and less time on the overall – it’s about achieving that ‘baseline’ and then focusing on things like dust spots, healing etc. All the stuff that is painful, but important to do.

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It’s not often you get access to decades worth of professional photographic experience in a single click – and we can’t wait to see what you create, both with Elevation Styles and Paul’s world-class workflow tips.

Channel your inspiration and try out Elevation Styles today

or

Learn how to use Styles in Capture One Pro

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Zoe Noble webinar product photography workflow

Product photography workflow, with Zoe Noble

Join David Grover and Zoë Noble to learn about Zoë’s product photography workflow with Capture One. In this webinar we will get an inside look on how Zoë divides up her photo editing tasks into different layers for maximum flexibility and high-quality results.

With a focus on color editing and correction, learn how Capture One’s extensive set of tools can modify product colors to fit client briefs – and handle drastic color changes.

You will learn about:

  • Color grading
  • Shifting product colors
  • Cleaning up marks and blemishes
  • Using layers for flexibility

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Polly Irungu on creating a space for Black women photographers

As a young Kenyan girl growing up in the United States, a career in photography was not on multimedia journalist and photographer Polly Irungu’s radar. Today, she is on a mission to make the photography industry a more inclusive and diverse place.

In 2020, Polly started Black Women Photographers – a global community of over 1000 members that aims to put Black creatives in the line of sight of gatekeepers of the industry and getting Black women and non-binary photographers hired.

The road to inclusivity

Working her way through the ranks and finding her footing in the photography industry was far from an easy, straightforward path for Polly. The industry was (and still is to a large extent) dominated by white men, and opportunities for Black photographers were often limited to Black History Month or to what happened to be a timely social uprising.

“I didn’t see myself in this industry. I didn’t see other people who look like me being celebrated in the same way as their counterparts. And when it comes down to it, I’m a photographer all 12 months of the year, not just one. So why am I not being hired for other opportunities?”

Seeing major gaps in the industry that weren’t being filled by existing organizations or resources, Polly decided to take matters into her own hands to incite change; she wanted to hear directly from other Black female photographers in similar situations to find out what their struggles were. She wanted to know if they felt supported, if they were getting paid opportunities, and if so, were they being paid the same as their peers?

The answers were dismal. Life as a black female photographer wasn’t easy. Getting booked for jobs wasn’t easy. Getting equal pay wasn’t easy. Polly had a clear picture of what her own struggles had been but hearing them echoed in her newfound community made the matter all the more urgent.

In May 2020, with a list of inspiring photographers she found on Twitter, Polly laid the groundwork for creating the world’s largest collective of Black women and non-binary photographers – Black Women Photographers.

Financial freedom in a time of need

At the time, the number one concern among the women Polly had spoken to was a lack of income due to COVID. So, that summer, Polly set up a COVID-19 relief fund specifically for Black women photographers who were financially impacted by the pandemic, which went on to raise over $14,000.

“It was just such a beautiful day, because we were able to make an immediate financial impact for people who were in dire need at the time.”

Without setting out to do so, with the help of her Twitter conversations, Polly had created a community of 100 photographers who could see a reflection of themselves within the industry – they could finally see a little bit of what Polly had been missing. They now had the opportunity to compare stories, share tips and job opportunities, lend support, and help push each other to achieve bigger and better things.

Not even two years later, the Black Women Photographers collective now houses over 1000 photographers from 45 different countries covering every thinkable form of photography.
“Every day, somebody’s posting a new opportunity, a new grant, a new whatever that photographers can apply to. Before, the mindset within the industry was that everything is a competition and that there’s only room for one person. Yet here we are. That kind of feeling, that kind of community is unmatched and that has been one of the most impactful things for me starting this collective.”

Not only does being part of the collective, and as such its directory, give Black women and non-binary photographers a whole new range of visibility in the industry, it gives them access to free workshops, free events, free portfolio reviews and special grants. The collective provides a whole new way for photographers to find their footing in the industry and to show the world the massive amount of talent that has been overlooked for far too long.

Carving out a space in the industry

In addition to giving Black women and non-binary photographers a space to support and learn from each other, Polly also hopes that by giving them a bigger space in the industry, there will be a greater diversity in the stories that are told and how they are portrayed.

“Knowing what it’s like to have a story told about you or being seen in a certain way that you didn’t want to be seen, there’s all these different things that we have to deal with just because of the color of skin. Knowing that, I think, helps inform us when we are documenting with our photography. I think we already just move in a more empathetic and different manner because of that.”

As an immense resource for clients who can easily browse and hire new talent, the community that Polly has built is reaping the benefits of having a place to showcase their work knowing that it will be seen by the right people.
A classic case of win-win.

Explore the Black Woman Photographers directory and follow the #HireBlackWomenPhotographers hashtag to see more of the incredible work Polly and her community are carrying out.

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Femininity, body forms and fashion with Annie Lai

As a woman photographer, women have been major subjects in my photography throughout the years.  Ever since I picked up the camera for the first time, I have been drawn to the subtlety and softness of femininity. I’m fascinated by the duality of fragility and inner strength of females – it’s so complex and yet can be portrayed in such a powerful and simplistic way.

You don’t need a lot of resources to get started. When I first started photography, I used to get my friends to model for me. We would go to a charity shop to pick out some ‘fancy-looking’ dresses and take simple portraits in the woods and parks or in front of a random house in the neighborhood. It was an after-school activity and how I bonded with my friends.

I’ve always considered the garments to be an important element of a photograph, either with bright colors and voluminous, flowy dresses that dominate the composition or complementary pieces which add more depth to the image. It shaped my future engagement with fashion photography.

 

Experimentation is key

Professional models entered the picture after I moved to London, when I started focusing on fashion photography. Taking inspiration from artists like Tim Walker, Horst P. Horst and Vivianne Sassene as well as from renaissance paintings, I became intrigued by body forms and postures. I was only shooting with women models back then, and every time I went to a shoot, I would show the pose references to the models, pushing to experiment with twisted and unusual poses. Quite often in post-production, I would play around with rotating and cropping the images to make the perspective more interesting.

How Capture One helped shape my professional career

Around three years ago, Capture One was recommended to me by a client. I’m not a technology person and was not particularly keen to take on any unfamiliar software, but I knew that tethered shooting – which means shooting directly into your computer for live preview – is a critical skill for a fashion photographer. I decided to give Capture One Pro a shot because it has the fastest and most reliable tethered capture.

I was already familiar with Lightroom and Photoshop, so it was easy to switch to Capture One Pro. I quickly became dependent on the photo editing software – Capture One Pro is basically a necessity when it comes to commercial shoots. With tethering, the clients get to see what’s happening in each image and a stylist can touch up the clothes when needed, while the make-up artist and hair stylist can check the model’s close-up without interrupting the shoot.

 

Tethering eases pressure from photographers who usually take the most responsibility for the final result. It’s a bridge to build trust and communication in the teams. The workflow became so much easier when the teams can see every detail in the image and adjust accordingly to get the shots faster.   Although I shoot most editorial work with analog camera, I always tether in Capture One using my digital camera so the team can see live previews.

Back to my roots

However, shooting fashion intensely can sometimes be quite draining. Back-and-forth emails, chasing up invoices, tight schedules and different requests from clients. I found my passion slowly fading away and at that point, I decided to take a step back and create something personal just for me.

Because of moving around, I have always lacked a sense of belonging – and a lot of my friends feel the same way. I reached out to a few Chinese girls that I know and share similarities with and asked them to be models for a new project.

The result is “In Between” – an on-going personal project that engages with individual Chinese girls who have similar cultural backgrounds to me, who also came to London before adulthood, and who live and grow here while figuring out life and learning to become a part of the society.

 

I photographed each girl in their London home, revealing their personality through the domestic surroundings. It’s the sanctuary where they feel most relaxed and intimate. By exploring the notion of beauty and femininity outside of stereotypes, I wanted to depict these girls with a natural and candid approach.

 

A photographer friend once told me that ‘she wants to give her images longer lives’ in this fast-paced digital era. We open Instagram and see hundreds of pictures every day. But how many of them will we remember and why can we remember them? I was really nervous to show the images to the girls I photographed, as I was unsure whether they would be seen as valuable without all the glossy, high-end fashion pieces and professional studio teams.

After seeing that the girls were genuinely thrilled about the images and how they are portrayed through my lens, I was filled with such inexplicable happiness. It motivates me to keep going on my professional path.

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