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RAW Talent with Wika Wójcikiewicz

Despite moving to the UK at 19, Wika Wójcikiewicz has not left her Eastern European roots behind. Allowing for curated “mistakes” in her work, the Polish photographer is inspired by the natural, raw, and sometimes gritty side of life and often brings elements from her own upbringing into her photos through the colors, motifs, and subjects she captures.

The soon-to-be London College of Communication graduate shares her thoughts on the in-between moments that create true beauty, mixing media and genres, and how to understand your own aesthetic.

What was your first experience in photography like?

I recall one of my first endeavors with photography occurring when I was gifted a small, plastic, pink-colored Nikon camera at eight years old. I got it for my first communion and started having fun by taking my first images and filming with my friends where we would even partake in styling, set design, and putting together childish scripts. At twelve years old, the idea of becoming a documentary photographer came into my mind. My interests in other subjects, such as geography, had drawn me to documentaries.

Throughout the years, I have been picking up and exploring more and more interests. Personally, I am not only intrigued by one area of photography or film. Since I have been into lens-based media since the age of eight, it only continues to evolve, weirdly leading me to the point I am at now.

Going from Gdansk in Poland to London in the UK must’ve been quite a change of pace and scenario. How did this journey affect the way you use photography to interpret the world?

After leaving Gdansk to come to London, I began to realize that as both an individual and a photographer, I carry the traditions, culture, aesthetics, and colors of both my people and my country. When you grow up with others who act or think like you, you tend not to acknowledge many differences. Differences exist regardless of where you are, as we are all human. However, differences between individuals are not as visible in comparison to the differences in a city like London. Identity was not spoken about often as everyone has a similar identity around you, whereas in London, your identity is more apparent.

As I had both observed and acquired this sense of identity, it revealed my aesthetics and my understanding of beauty through photography. Through this, my sense of expression has been elevated and developed. My awareness of my identity has tremendously helped with expressing where I am from, to the point that it is now something I unconsciously do, not something that is necessarily being forced to be implemented in my work.

Raw and rough are sensations that have a lot to do with your subjects and surroundings. How do you capture this feel in your work across different types of photography?

I suppose many may see my work and believe it to be raw or rough because they are used to perfection when it comes to photography; perfect bodies, faces, and products. As a consequence of this idea of perfection in photography, more organic and candid photos may be considered raw or rough.

However, I perceive those photos as more natural pieces of work. The way I personally achieve this is definitely through analog photography. It allows more room for certain mistakes that a DSLR might not, which is where the roughness of the images comes from.

For example, in fashion photography, I pay attention to and actively look for these candid moments when I shoot. These are moments you have to be patient for, for example, in-between glances from the model. I always seek and find these moments in all styles of photography, whether it is fashion, documentary, or film. I believe it is the true beauty of what we do as photographers – waiting for that particular moment and capturing it.

Many individuals have become accustomed to photography that is highly edited, often shot on a DSLR. These beautiful images of perfect people may have led more organic or less edited photographs to be deemed as rough or raw. For the past three years, I used to describe my work similarly. However, in more recent times, I believe my work to simply be more natural and just less edited in comparison to other photographers. My work being more organic is definitely because I look for these in-between moments and glances. These in-between moments can be crucial as they amplify the honest feel of the photograph and capture the true state of the situation.

Follow along with Wika as she edits one of her photos to bring out the detail of the scene.

How would you describe your style?

As mentioned before, it’s truly about the in-between moments. I would like to call it alternative portraits, which involve less conventional mimics and body language. I appreciate when there is an aspect of my work that catches the viewer’s eye and is remembered. This is executed best when your subject is relaxed, otherwise your subject will only be posing. I prefer when my subjects are both comfortable and natural rather than posing; I then have the room to capture what I need.

What are some of the types of photography you like to shoot the most?

Documentary, fashion, and film (which is also a lens-based media) are my favorites. I love mixing these genres and often find myself doing so. I encounter more space to create something new when mixing genres and styles, and it creates many future ideas. I enjoy sticking them all together by looking through a cinematic lens.

On a different note, how has studying at LCC (London College of Communication) helped you become a better photographer?

Being able to work on projects and study with so many different students from various backgrounds has been mind-blowing. I have seen and tried things that I have never even heard of before, in both a personal and photography/professional context. Exploring new media, colors, textures, and even tastes have helped me find out what suits my ideas best.

In places like that, you are given a chance to develop your identity as both an individual and a photographer.

My tutors are also very helpful. I would love to mention my tutor Derek Wiafe, who consistently provides people on the course with opportunities and tremendous help. It does not matter how busy he is – he would always find time to help everyone. He creates professionals out of his students. Derek honestly pushes us to the best place we possibly can be and ensures that we are working to the best of our potential. He definitely provides both technical and mental support as a tutor and mentor. Big shoutout to him!

Was studying at LCC where you first came in contact with Capture One? What role does the software play in your workflow?

I was introduced to Capture One at LCC through my tutor Derek. He advised us to download the software, and we later had an introductory workshop. We were shown how to use the software and explore its features. Even though I am fond of mistakes in my work, through my use of Capture One, my mistakes become more experimental than unknown. It allows me to see what I am getting and gives me the platform to see whether mistakes are worth developing or not.

Capture One is especially useful when decreasing ambiguity and the unknown from images. At this time in my work, I find it beneficial to know what I am getting on the day of shooting. I used to not consider the importance of this, but as I am now working in a more professional space, it has most certainly been of great assistance. It saves a lot of time.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career so far, and how have you overcome them? Any advice for other upcoming photographers?

One of the biggest challenges for me was moving to a new country by myself at the age of 19. I had come to London knowing nobody but ready to start a new life and embark on my photography career. I knew I had to work hard in this new endeavor, or I would have to go back home. This relates to my advice for other aspiring photographers, regardless of where you are – originality and hard work should be your two main priorities when considering your creative work. There are no shortcuts; even if you make good connections and can easily network, you still have to show worthy work.

To produce good work, I would suggest to others that they ensure they enjoy what they are doing. Your work should be pleasurable but should also drive you. I trust that when someone truly believes in what they do and the style they create, they can find their audience. I believe this is due to the fact that your work will come out true and honest, which individuals will see and can deem as good. No one can recreate your work as no one has had the same experiences as you nor possess your own personal aesthetics, aspects which are vital.

In short, I would tell other photographers like myself that understanding yourself and your aesthetics should be your goals when building your style and embarking on originality. Hard work is crucial; if you don’t work hard, no one will do it for you.

Finally, what are some of the photographers you look up to?

One of my favorite documentary photographers is definitely Boris Mikhailov. He’s a photographer who often deals with ideas of roughness and organic work while honestly showing how everything is. He also picks really alternative portraits, which align with my favored styles. In regard to specific genres such as fashion, I would say Zhong Lin is a photographer I’m rather fond of due to their use of color and aesthetics. In terms of alternative portraits, it is very eclectic, and that is exactly what I admire while shooting fashion.

Follow Wika on Instagram to see more of her work

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Update about the outage on Friday, April 14

To all of you who depend on us, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the outage affecting Capture One this past Friday, April 14.

Empower photographers is one of our core values, and we could not deliver on that during the outage. We also wish we had been more open and timelier in communications on our website, noticeboard, and social media. I want to apologize to all of you who were affected on behalf of everyone here at Capture One.

What happened?

On Friday, April 14 at 08:47 PM CEST, our detection systems flagged an outage that prevented many of our users from starting Capture One. Within minutes, our engineering team started investigating the root cause of the issue, and about 1.5 hours later the incident was fixed.

This was an especially difficult outage in that it involved a combination of factors. Our authentication and authorization services were overwhelmed and denied new requests for reasons that were unrelated to incoming traffic, and they ultimately required a restart.

Moving forward

Although an incident like this is very rare, we’re completely committed to making sure Capture One is available to you no matter what. So, we’re working closely with our cloud and infrastructure providers to prevent similar incidents in the future. We’ll also be making changes to the activation and authentication logic in Capture One Pro to make it more resilient to cloud availability. These will be progressively rolled out over the next 6 months.

We have also defined actions we will take to serve our community better in the future through a more proactive approach in our communications.

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to dozens of photographers and digitechs who have impressed on me the critical role Capture One plays during a high-stakes, time-sensitive photoshoot. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no persistent consequence from the outage, and your Capture One experience should be fully back to normal.

You can always contact our support team if you experience any problems using Capture One now or in the future.

We are grateful for the patience and support of our community, users, customers, and partners.

Rafael
CEO

Authority Collective shares their guide for more thoughtful photography practices

Authority Collective’s guide to inclusive photography

With a mission to empower marginalized visual artists, Authority Collective is working to end systemic and individual abuse in editorial, documentary, and commercial photography. In their Photographer’s Guide to Inclusive Photography, the group is challenging photographers to think about their responsibility when telling visual stories.

“The guide definitely came out of the recognition that photography, since its inception, has been an extremely extractive space,” explains Tara Pixley about the Photographer’s Guide to Inclusive Photography, which addresses the specific things photographers should consider when shooting stories related to race, gender, sexuality and more.

Tara is a visual journalist, professor, and one of the founding members of Authority Collective, a community for women, non-binary, and gender expansive people of color working with photography, film, and VR/AR to connect and share resources.

It was at a conference in 2017 that Tara and nine other photographers of color got together to create the collective after noticing they had all had similar experiences in the photography industry – many of them experiencing microaggressions from usually male and white photo editors, creators, and colleagues.

“If we hadn’t come together and kind of had this conversation, we wouldn’t have realized that this was happening to a lot of different people. We wouldn’t have come to this realization that it wasn’t us as individuals – we’re not doing a bad job or we’re doing something wrong. It’s actually these microaggressions that are being put upon us,” she says.

More thoughtful representation

Seeing that it was not only photographers, but the also subjects of photography who were facing discrimination, the collective wanted to find a better way for photographers to work with marginalized groups. Wanting to address the fact that a lot of documentary photography work has been done by people who are photographing communities they’re not part of, often in a way that disadvantages those communities, they began reaching out to editorial and photo organizations to help them address this and other diversity issues.

“We started focusing our energy toward interventions and that’s how things like The Guide to Inclusive Photography came about,” says Tara.

Questions for photographers

“This guidebook was attempting to open up that conversation to say, ‘Hey, here are some ethical approaches. Here are some thoughtful ways to critically engage with your photography and recognize the power structures and power hierarchies at play’,” explains Tara and adds that since it was first published, the guidebook has been downloaded almost 10,000 times.

The guide, which was made in partnership with Photoshelter, dedicates chapters to photographing race, the global south, indigeneity, gender, and LGBTQIA communities and addresses the specific things to think about before photographing and portraying each of these groups.

In the end, the guidebook offers a list of questions for photographers to ask themselves to help challenge their own work. Questions like ‘Am I perpetuating stereotypical narratives with my work?’ ‘What are the likely consequences of the publication of my photography?’ ‘Who will be harmed? Who will be helped?‘.

Making room for more perspectives

Tara underlines that the guide is not there to say that people who aren’t part of the different groups covered in the guide cannot photograph them. Instead, the guide offers some ethical approaches to doing so.

“There is no objectivity and neutrality. We are indeed – every single one of us – subjective. So, instead of pretending that [we come with] neutrality, what we need to do is recognize and celebrate where we’re coming from and understand our potential limitations, understand what that makes possible,” she says.

“It’s to make space for all photographers, for all perspectives. Everyone needs to have a multitude of views and understandings in our visual content. We need that. We require it to have a better understanding of the world.”

The guide was edited byTara Pixley and Jovelle Tamayo, who are founding member of Authority Collective. Tailyr Irvine, Mengwen Cao, Danielle Villasana, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, and Hannah Reyes Morales all contributed to the guide.

Find Authority Collective’s Guide to Inclusive Photography here.

* This post was originally published in August 2022.

How to edit wedding photos faster – Five hot tips from Wedding Photographer Eric Ronald

Getting back from a wedding with thousands of images to sift through and edit can feel like a daunting task. Having a few tricks up your sleeve to speed up the whole process can take some of the pressure off.

With years of experience working as a wedding photographer, Eric Ronald has gone through his fair share of late-night post-production sessions. But along the way, he has picked up more than a few ways to make the work faster and more enjoyable. In this post, he shares five ways he likes to speed up his workflow in Capture One and edit wedding photos faster.

Custom keyboard shortcuts

When you sit down with a mountain of work in front of you, the question on your mind is probably, “How do I edit my photos faster?”. Eric’s first tip is to cut out all the detours.

“It may not be very glamorous, but the ability to map keyboard shortcuts is huge. It allows me to instantly make adjustments at my fingertips without needing to rely entirely on the cursor, and it speeds up my edits considerably,” he says, having customized much of his workflow to be available with as few keystrokes as possible.

“One of the hardest parts of embracing this method is committing the shortcuts to memory, so what I’d suggest is printing them out for your quick reference.”

To get your own reference list, go to Edit > Edit keyboard shortcuts. At the bottom of the pop-up, you will see “list shortcuts”. This will then take you to your web browser with your shortcuts listed in a format that’s print ready.

“Stick it up somewhere close to your screen so you can quickly refer at a glance, and before you know it, you’ll be hitting keyboard combos like you were playing Mortal Combat on Super Nintendo in 1995. And yes, you can be hitting multiple keys at any one time,” says Eric and adds that for common adjustments like Exposure, White Balance, and Contrast, he likes to map the Speed Edit shortcuts to the exact same keys.

“What this means is that, for example, I can tap ‘F’ to increase explore +0.1, or for larger adjustments, I can push and hold ‘F’ to engage the Speed Edit function, where I can easily make larger adjustments using the cursor.”

“And let’s not forget with the ‘Edit Selection’ function enabled, you can select multiple images in your browser and edit them all at the same time!”

Get it straight with Auto Keystone

“I’m quite a fan of symmetry, and I often find after applying lens corrections, it can accentuate being slightly off-axis, especially on wide-angle lenses. A quick solution for me is the auto keystone feature.”

The Auto Keystone tool, which was introduced in Capture One Pro 22, helps you automatically correct any perspective distortion if you were not able to get the perfect angle. An important step to be aware of is that whichever axis you select under the Keystone Tool (vertical, horizon or both) specifies not only what axis you adjust manually but also which axis the auto adjustment will adjust.

“For me, rarely do I want to adjust both. It’s mostly the horizontal axis I’m looking to fix up,” says Eric.

“As long as there are enough points of reference in the image for Capture One to calculate, it will nail it every time. If not, that might be where you need to fine-tune it manually. That’s where tip #1 comes in – map keystone to your keyboard shortcuts, and you’ll have that dialed in in seconds.”

Related: How wedding photographer Alessandro Galatoli transformed his workflow with Capture One for iPad

Make the most out of Export Recipes

“I have to admit it took me WAY too long to embrace this incredibly helpful feature,” says Eric about his next tip.

“Simply investing a few minutes in setting up multiple recipes for each of the different image formats, resolutions, and destinations that you regularly need to export makes finishing up an edit no effort at all.”

Eric recommends first resetting your output counter when necessary to ensure that the files you’re about to export start at number 0001. You can do this by clicking the three dots at the top right of the Naming Tool and select “Reset Output Counter”.

“Also, I highly recommend setting up subfolder tokens under the Location tool. What I like to do here is add ‘Recipe Name’/‘Collection Name’. What this means is that Capture One will export all of the images to the output location divided up into subfolders – firstly by recipe name, then within each collection name.”

“The Collection Name is handy for me with weddings as I like to divide the day up into different parts such as ‘Getting Ready’, ‘Ceremony’, ‘Reception’ etc. So, for that to work you’ll of course want to arrange your images into collections first.”

He adds that you should remember to set the Catalog default export location, which you can do under the Location Tool by clicking the little button with a folder and cog right next to the folder selection. By doing this, the location will follow in all of the recipes where “Catalog Default” has been selected as the location, rather than having to set them all individually.

“I really can’t express how much time this saves me and what joy it is once I finish an edit to be exporting absolutely everything I need in just a few seconds.”

Luma range masking

This next tip is handy in a wide variety of applications, according to Eric. But there’s one place where he uses Luma Masking all the time – the sky.

“Usually, it is about pulling back some detail and/or adding some drama. And while the Gradient Tool can get you most of the way there sometimes, when you don’t have a clear horizon, Luma Masking allows you to dial in the luminance of the desired area you wish to adjust and only apply it to that range,” he explains.

“This makes an otherwise tedious task with your cursor or tablet a breeze. However, do pay close attention to the edges of the mask to ensure the best results.”

“When you can clearly see the edges of the mask, try this: in the Luma Range popup, try making use of the Display Mask option where the overlay will make it much easier to dial in the Range, Falloff, Radius, and Sensitivity,” says Eric and adds that it can be helpful to zoom in for fine-tuning.

Eric also explains that you should remember that the mask refers to tone, not necessarily a particular location of an image, so if you have that in mind when creating the mask, you will be able to copy and paste your mask to other similar images to apply the same adjustment even if the composition is different.

Smart adjustments for instant consistency

When it comes to speeding up the editing process, knowing how to bulk edit your images is going to save you hours. This is something Eric has also discovered.

“I couldn’t not mention the most recent game-changing addition to Capture One; the new Smart Adjustment Tool fueled by our new friend AI. This is particularly helpful for me in weddings where I need to edit a large number of images at any one time.”

The new Smart Adjustments feature, which has been designed specifically for portrait, wedding, and event photographers, uses faces and skin tones as guidance to determine which adjustments to make to your photos to give them all a consistent look with just one click.

“I tend to find this most useful for a sequence of similar-ish looking images,” says Eric. “Specifically, for good, consistent results, you want the light on your subject to be similar on your reference images as the ones you’re going to apply Smart Adjustments to. But if it’s not already there, be sure and add the Smart Adjustments Tool to your toolkit.”

How do you use Smart Adjustments? Easy. Just edit your reference image as you like (Eric likes to have both Exposure and White Balance selected for this). Then, in the tool, select “Set as Reference” and simply select the images you want to edit

“To take it a step further, you can even save those Smart Adjustments, including your other regular adjustments if you like, as a Style. I haven’t made a lot of use of this particular feature yet, but I have no doubt it would be super handy for photographers in other fields. The on-the-fly approach of setting a reference and applying as I go works wonderfully for me.”

Bonus round

To round it all off, Eric leaves us with a final tip to get the most out of your editing and save hours down the line.

“I can’t stress enough – invest the time in designing your workspace in a way that works for you. It’s all about having the tools that you need at the ready and tucking away or getting rid entirely of the things you never use.”

“Especially if you’re new to Capture One, this will make you feel right at home much more quickly.”