Who shoots it
Allen Velasquez.
When we tell a client we will handle the photo and video, this is who turns up. Not a stock subscription, not a stringer, not one of us with a decent camera. A commercial photographer and filmmaker with two decades of national campaign work behind him, who now lives and shoots here.
Why this matters to you and not just to us
Every agency says it has a photographer. Usually that means a freelancer they call when a client asks, whose work nobody has looked at closely, on a day rate that got quoted without anyone seeing a portfolio.
Allen's work has run as national campaigns for Juan Valdez, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Ferrero, Gatorade, Pepsi, Corona, Bancolombia and Movistar. He shot the restaurant groups El Corral and Lenos & Carbon, and Restaurante El Cielo. Copa America. Colombiamoda. That is not a list we assembled from a bio, it is the shot list you can go and look at in the archive, frame by frame.
The relevant question about a photographer is not whether the pictures are pretty. It is whether they have ever had to make something sell.
He has. Repeatedly, at a scale where a bad frame costs a client a media buy. That is a different instinct from portfolio photography, and you can see it in the work: the crops are deliberate, the range is consistent, and everything is built to survive being placed into somebody else's layout.
He is not an employee, and we are not going to pretend otherwise
Allen runs his own photography business and takes his own bookings. We bring him in on client work, we brief him, and we handle everything that happens to the frames afterwards. If you only want the shoot, you should book him directly, and the links on this page go straight to him rather than through us.
We are upfront about this because the alternative is the thing agencies do where a subcontractor gets presented as staff, and then the client finds out. We would rather just tell you: brilliant photographer, his own business, on our team when we need him.
What he shoots
Food and restaurant, beverage and packaging, real estate and architecture, corporate portraits, and marine work. Those are his pages, on his own site, and they go into more depth on the craft than we do here:
On set
Not every job is a national campaign.
These are the last three shoots: a tool shop, a restaurant kitchen and an interview in a designer's own office. Lights, stands and a field monitor, in somebody's actual place of business. Nothing here is stock footage of a film crew.
From the archive
People, growers and crews.
Photography by Allen Velasquez. Used with permission. See his portfolio
Working together
How the two halves split
| The job | Allen | DV8 Web |
|---|---|---|
| The brief | Shapes it | Writes it, from what the marketing needs |
| The shoot | All of it | On set, usually |
| Styling and prep | His call | We organise the day with you |
| Retouching | In house, his | - |
| Crops and sizes per placement | - | Ours |
| Onto the website | - | Ours |
| Google profile, ads, email, social | - | Ours |
| Booking a shoot only | Book him direct | We will point you at him |
Allen Velasquez, commercial photographer
Two decades of national campaign work for Juan Valdez, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrero, Gatorade and Pepsi, now shooting on Florida's Treasure Coast. He runs his own photography business and takes his own bookings. If the shoot is all you need, go straight to him.
Common questions
About working with Allen
Can I hire Allen without hiring DV8 Web?
Yes, and we will hand you straight over. His site is linked all over this page for exactly that reason. There is no finder's fee and no markup attached to you going direct, because a photographer who gets busy is more use to us than one we gatekeep.
Does Allen shoot video as well as stills?
Yes. Motion, brand films and interview work, usually captured on the same day as the stills so you are not paying to set up the same scene twice. More on the video page.
Does he speak Spanish?
Yes, natively. Most of the campaign work in the archive was shot in Colombia and across Latin America. For a bilingual business in South Florida that turns out to matter more often than you would think, particularly on set with a kitchen crew.
What gear does he shoot on?
Medium format for the studio and packaging work where the detail has to hold up at print size, and full frame on location. It is the least interesting question anyone asks a photographer, but it does get asked, so there is the answer.
Keep going
Where to next
Next step
Let us look at what you have got.
Send over your website, your Google profile, whatever photography you already own. We will tell you straight what is worth keeping, what is costing you, and whether you need a shoot at all. No charge and no pitch attached to it.