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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.

If you don’t already have Capture One, download a 30 day trial and try it out.

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Zoë Noble on capturing women who choose to be childfree

Starting out as a side project for Berlin-based beauty photographer Zoë Noble to shine a light on women who choose not to have children, “We Are Childfree” has become a community of women across the world that support each other, share advice for how to live childfree, and work to destigmatize the act of choosing not to have children.

“I didn’t have any role models growing up, and the ones that I saw were negative; it was always the mad, career-obsessed, hating-children, woman. And I knew that wasn’t me,” says beauty and still photographer Zoë Noble about the portrayal of childfree women.

Realizing early on that she did not want to have children made her acutely aware of how radical that decision is within most societies. She felt that her choice was met with judgment and at times a lack of respect, having doctors tell her that she would change her mind or rejecting her request to have procedures that would affect her ability to have children.

“When I had fibroids and I wasn’t allowed to have a hysterectomy, because the doctor’s priority was my fertility. Even though I said that I didn’t want children.”

“I knew that if I was feeling like this, there had to be other women who were feeling alone.”

Putting a Face on the Childfree

Wanting to connect with other women in her situation, Zoë set up her home studio and started shooting a portrait series that she named “We Are Childfree”. She interviewed her subjects about their decision and life after opting out of motherhood.

“I knew that if I could shine the light and maybe put a face to the people who were making this choice that it would destigmatize it and just make people not feel so alone. I had a camera and I felt like I could do something about it.”

A global community

Since starting the portrait series, “We Are Childfree” has grown into a global community where  people from around the world share their experiences, advice, and support with others who chose not to have children.

“I asked each woman to choose a location that represents them, that feels most like their personality, and just photographed women all around the city and spoke to women all around the world. And the response was incredible. The New York Times posted about it in April last year, and that really just pushed it out into the world.”

“I’ve been getting emails from China, Kenya, Australia, people who are just really grateful that there is finally some representation.”

Choosing a different lifestyle

As Zoë points out, womanhood and motherhood have historically been seen as one and the same. Nowadays, more women are challenging this view by asking themselves if they actually want to have children and looking at the alternatives.

“It’s about choice. This isn’t about us attacking parents or children. It’s about recognizing that there are different life choices here.”

“We’re told as women that our goal in life is to have children. And when you don’t want that, you are abnormal, and you’re broken. So, putting a face to this movement is showing people that there is no one way to be childfree like there’s no one way to be a woman.”

A lot of the women who reach out to Zoë with their stories have their own reasons for not wanting to have children. For some, it’s the lack of societal support for mothers; for others, it is a political or environmental issue. But for many, it is simply a personal choice about the kind of lifestyle they want for themselves.

“I really wanted to show the diversity. Taking photos of people is a way to actually show that we are here in this society. You can’t pretend that we don’t exist or that we are the monsters that you try and portray us as. We’re just normal people. I feel like that’s the power of the image.”

Explore the “We are Childfree” site to learn more about the project and Zoë’s work.

 

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Find out how ti witch from Lightroom to Capture One with these 10 killer tips

10 killer tips for switching from Lightroom to Capture One

Getting used to new software is rarely easy – but it doesn’t have to be frustrating. If you are considering switching from Lightroom to Capture One, here are 1o tips for making the transition easy.

1. Interface

There are a few things to take notes of when switching from Lightroom to Capture One:

  • The default layout has tools to the left and browser to the right of the viewer.
  • To choose a layout more similar to Lightroom, simply select ‘Window > Workspace > Migration’. This will provide a workspace that more closely resembles Lightroom’s layout.
  • Most tools in Capture One can be re-organized, moved freely around between Tool Tabs, and even scaled when pulled out of the Tool Tab, by simply clicking the Tool Title and dragging. Parts of the interface can also be hidden. For an easy overview, use the View menu.
  • Tools can be distributed between a scrollable part and a pinned part within the Tool Tabs. The pinned part is always at the top, making it easy to pin the tools you need to have instant access to.
Capture One has a customizable interface. Set up the workspace how you like

Capture One has a customizable interface. Set up the workspace how you like

2. Catalog or Session?

Capture One offers two ways of organizing your images. Catalogs and Sessions. What are they?

Catalog

Just like Lightroom, you can import your images to a Capture One Catalog. You can choose to keep your images in their current location or copy them inside the Catalog. A Catalog is a database that contains information about metadata, keywords, ratings, etc. for each image.

When importing, organizing, or editing your images, Capture One updates the database with this information. This is a very useful way of working with larger image collections.

You can even import your Lightroom Catalog directly into Capture One.

Session

A Session provides a simpler, folder-based workflow with a predefined structure of ready-to-use folders and the ability to browse any other folder on your computer without having to import. Adjustments are placed in a subfolder next to the images. Sessions are suitable for tethered shooting, individual jobs, etc.

You can use one or the other – or both!

3. Presets = Styles

What’s called presets in Lightroom is called Styles in Capture One. They work in a similar way and are easily adjusted after applying. Capture One also features Presets, which only includes one tool, making them accessible from within the tool they use. To summarize:

Style: Pre-defined adjustments including multiple tools.

Preset: Pre-defined adjustments including only one tool.

To learn more about Styles and Presets when switching from Lightroom to Capture One, watch this tutorial (5 minutes).

4. Layers

Layers in Capture One provide similar functionality as Brushes in Lightroom. However, they work more as Layers work in Photoshop, where each layer has a mask. If we stick to Adjustment Layers, you have two initial options:

  1. New Empty Layer – The default option when clicking the plus-icon in the tool. This will create a new layer without a mask on it. To see the effect of any adjustments applied to the Layer, you need to mask the desired area with the brush.
  2. New Filled Layer – By long-pressing the plus-icon, you can choose this option. This will create a new layer with a solid mask on it. Any adjustments will show on the entire image, but you have the option to erase parts of the mask or decrease the opacity of the whole layer.

Layers in Capture One provide similar functionality as Brushes in Lightroom, but work more like layers in Photoshop

5. Speed Edit

You can edit your images in Capture One in many ways. One of them is Speed Edit, which is a functionality that allows you to edit your images without having to pull any sliders.

Speed Edit works by holding down an assigned key on the keyboard and its corresponding slider will temporarily show at the bottom of the viewer. While holding down the key, simply scroll your mouse wheel or trackpad, click-and-drag anywhere in the interface, or press the arrow keys on your keyboard to adjust the slider.

Speed Edit allows you to edit your images without having to pull any sliders

Which keys are assigned to what sliders can be viewed and even customized in the Keyboard Preferences section.

Pro tip: Speed Edit works on batches of images. You can for example warm up 500 images with the same amount, and at the same time, by tweaking the Kelvin using Speed Edit.

6. Copy adjustments

To copy adjustments from one image to others, click the arrow-up icon in the top right corner. Capture One automatically detects changed adjustments and puts them in the Adjustments Clipboard Tool. Control which adjustments you want to be copied from the clipboard, and click the arrow-down icon to apply these adjustments to the selected images. The process of copying adjustments makes your transition easier when switching from Lightroom to Capture One.

Copy / Apply icon is in the top right hand corner of Capture One

7. Color Balance

The Color Balance Tool will make color grading easy and fast. It’s like Split Toning, but with more options.

The Master channel works as an overall visual White Balance tweaker; the whole image will be affected. Shadow, Midtone, and Highlight will tone each part of your image with the hue and saturation of your choosing.

The luminosity slider to the right provides additional control of the contrast of the image while color grading.

The Color Balance Tool will make color grading easy and fast. It’s like Split Toning, but with more options.

 

8. Edit All Selected Variants

When exporting, deleting, or adjusting multiple images at a time, make sure to enable ‘Edit > Edit All Selected Variants…’. Otherwise, you will only export/delete/adjust the highlighted image in your selection.

You might think “why would anyone need to disable this?!” – but there are surprisingly many instances where it’s useful.

9. Shortcuts

In any software, shortcuts make lives easier. This is no different in Capture One. In addition to an extensive default list of shortcuts, you have the option to add shortcuts for almost anything. Including changing all the default shortcuts.

Go to ‘Edit > Edit Keyboard Shortcuts…’. The first step is to duplicate the default and create your own list. Then you can edit away.

10. Instant tethered capture

Capture One was initially designed 20 years ago as a tethering software, meaning it would transfer an image from a connected camera to the computer, and show it on the screen.
For an industry-leading tethered workflow, simply create a new Session, connect a supported camera and start shooting.

If you don’t already own Capture One, you can download a 30-day trial and discover its power.

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Capture One Pro workflow with professional food photographer Rachel Korinek

We asked Australian-born, Canda-based food photographer Rachel Korinek of Two Loves Studio to share her secrets for a smooth workflow that helps her capture appetizing scenes and create mouth-watering images for her clients. Read her step-by-step guide for a faster workflow from shoot to delivery.

As a professional food photographer, Capture One Pro has allowed me to seamlessly tether a photo shoot, edit and select as I go, followed by efficiently exporting with Export Recipes. An overview of my editing workflow is as follows:

● Tethering and syncing basic edits to each new photo.
● Selecting hero shots using star ratings.
● Editing selected images based on client needs or food stories.
● Taking images to be retouched into Photoshop as a PSD.
● Exporting files into organized folders using Export Recipes.

Let’s discuss the workflow approach I take in a little more depth.

Tethering & Syncing Base Edits and Metadata.

Tethering allows still life and food photographers to make small compositional changes that are important to tell a food story. Capture One Pro also makes it very easy to synchronize edits from one image to another during a tethered shoot.

Not only does that help me visualize how I want the final images to look and if there are any changes to lighting that I need to make, but it makes the entire editing process quicker at the end of a shoot.

In the Camera Tool Tab, I set Next Capture Adjustments to ‘Copy from Last’ to ensure that my basic edits are applied to each incoming photo during the photo shoot.

Selecting & Starring as I Go

Selecting images during the shoot is a great way to speed up our workflow and organize the final hero selects. As I shoot, I will be filtering images to be considered as a ‘final pick’. I find that starring images with 1 or 2 stars helps me organize images I’d like to review at the end of the shoot.

I can easily jump into each filter and see the images we’ve selected and if anything is missing from the client’s shot list or composition options.

Save time in your workflow by starring or filtering hero images or selects to organize them for review after the photo shoot. On large shoots, this helps organize a larger volume of images.

The Editing Process for Starred Heros

All images will already have basic edits applied during tethering. From here, I’ll focus on editing each hero shot based on what they need – the light I am shooting, and the type of food story I am trying to tell. The tools I use the most are:

Luma Curve, Levels, and Clarity. White Balance, Basic Color Editor, and the Advanced Color Editor.

As masks are local adjustments, I leave my masking until this stage rather than during tethering.

Once I’ve edited my final selects, I will move them to the ‘Selects Folder’ for simple jobs. Larger jobs might require more organization and can be organized into Session Favorites.

Capture One Pro makes it easy to customize the interface to edit in a way that suits you as a photographer and what you’re trying to achieve.

Taking Files into Photoshop for Retouching

A large majority of my images will be retouched in Photoshop. At this stage, Capture One  Pro lets me to take my image seamlessly into Photoshop for retouching. Saving the file will then bring the PSD (or TIFF file) back into Capture One Pro so I can have the retouched file stored and organized with the other hero images.

To keep a track of the retouched files, I will assign a different color tag for further organization.

Assigning a different filter, i.e., a Color Tag to retouched files allows me to quickly find retouched files at later dates.

Exporting Files into Custom Folders

Once final edits and retouching have been completed, it’s time to export the files for the client. Clients have various needs when it comes to final files. I have set up Export Recipes for different client needs for the final file format, all being named specifically for the client and organizing them into individual folders. For example, images for Instagram can be exported to the optimal format for Instagram and saved into a separate folder. I also organize files into High Resolution, Web Resolution, and PSD files so the client can easily access each file type.

Setting up your Export Recipes takes just a few moments and has had such a huge impact in quickening my workflow and making ease of organization. I’ve set up Export Recipes to organize files into separate folders instantly.

My workflow has evolved over the ten years I’ve been photographing. While I continually strive to perfect my RAW editing and streamline my workflow, my main goal is to save time and organize my body of work. This has freed me up to spend more time being creative both in and out of Capture One Pro. Integrating a superior RAW editor like Capture One Pro into my workflow has allowed me to evolve my work in ways that would have otherwise taken years.

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