Realize, We Are in a Service Industry!

Featured photographer Vanessa Gavalya, owner of Vanessa Gavalya Photography, Texas, USA

It’s important for photographers to realize that we are in a service industry. We are artists, but if your goal is to make money as well, you have to provide great customer service and understand how to market yourself. Fantastic images have to be a given.



Personally, I photograph mostly people and love working with people. With my subjects, I try to show off what is lovable or alluring about that person... even if it’s a grumpy business man. Everyone has something attractive about themself… even if it’s not skin deep. Sometimes a picture is showing what’s on the inside and not just the outside.

The team that I put together is also a key component to a great shoot and a happy Client. I like working with people who are passionate about what they do and work hard. I think part of what has made me profitable quickly is that I work my tail off and think big…. for my business and for each Client.



To have success when I shoot, the Client needs to walk away happy. The Capture One software helps not only my workflow but also it makes things easier on the Client during the shoot. While I’m shooting the Client or art director can sit with the digital tech and flag hero shots and compare shots side by side. I shoot everything in RAW format. At the end of the day the hero shots can be converted to TIFF files or whatever format is needed, and the Client can leave with those shots in hand.

Award-winning Photography

Featured photographer Drew Gardner, London, UK.

Drew Gardner's Alice series has been nominated for The AOP Photographers’ Awards one of the highest accolades within the professional photographic industry.

As a fashion photographer, he has chosen to make magic out of a wardrobe by evoking a very specific mood through fanciful places. He calls it,Epic Fashion photography- an approach that takes fashion to a cinematographic level. The vision is compelling.



I was yearning for greater quality than any DSLR is capable of delivering. So I went out and bought a Phase One P 25 digital back. At the time I wondered what I had done; how could I have just spent so much money? But, in fact, I’d opened the door to a whole new era of my career, one that I could never have touched before; I had come upon opportunities that couldn’t have existed before. It was an epiphany.

A key difference is that the digital back captures in16-bit, whereas a DSLR typically captures in 12-bit. This is what gives you incredible color depth. It renders more natural looking colors, and because it’s giving you so much more data to work with, you get greater dynamic range - more latitude in adjusting exposure afterwards in RAW, without losing image quality. You also get incredible resolution and no noise.



Image Processing

In the early days of shooting digital, I thought I didn’t have to worry about exposures, that I could fix it all later. After spending three days clearing up themess from one shoot, I knew I had to make digital work for me or go back to film. I knew I had to get it right – so I went back to the basics. I started to shoot as if I were shooting on transparencies. Once I did that, I turned the corner. Also, up until then, I had tried all kinds of ways to process my RAW photo images. Then I found Phase One Capture One PRO. I found that it delivers great colors, low noise, and is very intuitive to use. You can sit down and learn it pretty easily - you don’t need a big book.

The features I rely on the most are the Color Editor, the Overlay Utility and Styles.

Back to the roots - with digital

By Featured Photographer Thomas Martin, owner of Thomas Martin Photography, Germany.



After looking back on a 10 year + history of using digital backs professionally I can truly say that I am as comfortable shooting digital as I was shooting film.

Having tried many digital systems, I use exclusively the Capture One PRO Software and the P 25 digital back from Phase One. The flow and ease of the software and its high quality of images really convinced me.




The combination of the digital back and the software gives me the ability to utilize my creativity in ways that were unthinkable when I started 20 years ago.

With the new generation of digital backs, P 25 or P 45 there is only one answer to this question: I work traditionally with digital!

The digital back combines the possibilities of analog photography with
the advantages of digital photography. When it comes to the ever lasting critical question of color & contrast then in my opinion there is an advantage in using a digital back.

With Phase One there is no limit in my creativity using light.


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