Commercial photographer, Los Angeles, California - Product, Advertising, Food Photography

Dennis Davis is a commercial photographer serving Los Angeles and Southern California with digital images that sell products. He specializes in product, food and advertising photography.

"I understand that what I am doing is commercial art," says Davis. "If my image doesn't make the viewer want to buy my client's product then I haven't done my job."

"Light is the most important thing about a photograph," says Davis. "Anybody can point a camera, but the art and science of understanding and controlling light separates the weekend shooters from the pros. Photography is painting with light. I try to use and manipulate light to make my images look three dimensional - you can almost feel the textures on the page. I love creating images with bold, saturated colors, and close-up, in-your-face style that stop the viewer from flipping pages and say 'wow, that's cool'."

"You will get excellent service," promises Davis. "Your images will be delivered on time, on budget, as promised. I guarantee there will be plenty of images that are good quality - accurate exposures and properly focused - or I will reshoot for free."

Commercial Photographer Creates Value

Dennis Davis can help you communicate the best features of your product or service better and faster than one hundred paragraphs. There will always be another photographer with a lower price, but if my images make your product or service sell and the other photographer’s images don’t, which is a better value? I am an artist, painting with light, capturing the beauty in what I see with my unique vision. However, I never forget that if my art doesn’t make money for my clients, I have failed.

There will always be photographers with a lower price then Mr. Davis, but do they provide a good value? This is what John Ruskin, back in the nineteenth century said about cost versus worth:

“It’s unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all.

When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot -- it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.

There are five things that make me unique among commercial photographers:

• Service
Mega pixels
• Vision
• Experience
• Guarantee

Service: You can expect a written estimate within 24 hours of your call, regular communication, all of your questions answered, and exacting organization of the shoot.
Mega Pixels: I shoot with a 39 Mega Pixel Phase One P45+medium format camera system that creates up to a 224 mega byte file in beautiful 16-bit color. None of the Nikons, Canons, Fuji’s or other 35 mm type digital cameras even approach the quality of this $32,000 system. Less than 1% of commercial photographers in the US work with digital cameras this good; the average Nikon creates a file ¼ this size, with only half the number of colors.
Vision: Although I always get the shot my client requests, I also ensure that I capture the image that my imagination dictates, that I see in my mind’s eye. Look through the work on this site, and see if you like my vision.
Experience: In addition to over 15 years experience as a photographer, I have also worked as a graphic designer, Photoshop instructor, marketing director, V.P. of an advertising agency and webmaster. I speak your language, and understand the shoot from your point of view.
Guarantee: If my shots are not correctly exposed, sharp where they should be, and of publishing quality, I will reshoot for free. My work is on-time, on-budget, as promised.

Email or Call Now

Do you need a free quote on a project or have questions? What are you waiting for? Email Davis@DavisPhotographic.com or call my studio at 213-623-3320 or cell at 213-434-3344.

Dennis Davis Biography

At age 9, Dennis Davis started shooting landscapes in Yosemite Valley, California with a Kodak Brownie camera, and fell in love with the ability to capture the beauty of nature and share it with family and friends. At age 19, Dennis worked as a counselor at a Yosemite summer camp, and was approached by another counselor about helping with photography duties.

“She gave me a manual Nikon camera to use, and about 50 rolls of slide film. My training period lasted about 45 seconds,” says Davis. After shooting 5 rolls, the moment of truth came during the processing in the darkroom. “I think we spent more time making out then we did processing the film. But when I saw my images in rich, spectacular color on the slides, I was hooked” Exclaimed Davis.

“My family was very poor as I was growing up, my father picked fruit and my mother ran a used clothing store, so I could not afford my own camera. While working for a doctor for $40 a month at a missionary training center in Alabama, I began praying for a camera of my own.”

Dr. Calvin Thrash approached me one day, saying “Pentax is changing from a screw mount to a bayonet mount system. My screw mount system is obsolete, and I am going to replace it with a bayonet mount camera. Would you be interested in my screw mount Pentax system” he asked?

The Pentax system had a manual SLR camera body and six lenses. “It was the answer to my prayers. I purchased several books on photography, saved my money and bought an inexpensive studio lighting system, and within a few months I was shooting photographs for brochures, album covers and book covers,” Davis continues.

“About 2 years after getting my first camera given to me, I opened a photography studio in Columbus, Georgia in a run-down building. I shot a 90 page full-color catalog the first year in business, and got the contract for it again the year after. However, there was not enough businesses and corporate headquarters in the small town of Columbus to keep an advertising photographer busy, so I opened a photography business in Denver, Colorado,” Davis explains.

“My photography business in Denver lasted about 2 years, with most of my work coming from King Sooper's grocery store chain. When King Sooper's printer moved their photography studio from Dallas to Denver, they undercut the prices of all 3 Denver photographers King Sooper's was using, and put the 3 of us out of business. After we were safely out of the way, new studio raised their prices higher than ours had been. I went back to school and got a degree in graphic design, as there was a new program called Adobe PhotoShop that I wanted to learn. “

“I worked as a graphic designer, marketing director, V.P. of an advertising agency and a Webmaster for the next 15 years or so, but there was never a year that went by that I did not have my photography published in brochures, magazines, catalogs or on websites. In fact, when I worked as the V.P. of a San Diego advertising agency, I shot most of their client's work, without being paid extra for it. “

In September, 2001 I was working as a Webmaster and Senior Graphic Designer for a software company in San Diego. Due to the dot com stock market crash, our entire marketing team was laid off. Then 9/11 happened, and over 30% of the people in the advertising field lost their jobs. No one was hiring, the average webmaster position had over 600 applicants. I went through all of my savings during the following year, and depleted all of my unemployment checks.”

“I was down to my last unemployment check, all my savings were gone, and I had no way to pay the rent. I owned a Nikon FE2 camera that I had dropped on the streets of Paris and broken the shutter so that it only worked 2/3 of the time. That camera and a single flash was all the photography gear I owned. I thought, “why not try following my heart and go back into photography? Maybe my skill at creating websites will allow me to get my work in front of people.”

“So in February 2002 I put up my first photography website, and landed a cookbook project in May that paid $15,000 and allowed me to buy a digital camera and another light. My business took off, and I was successful from the start. In spring of 2004 I put up the website LosAngelesProPhotographer.com, bought a cell phone with a Los Angeles prefix, and begin working in both LA and San Diego. In October 2004 I was getting more work and better jobs in LA then in San Diego, and I moved to Sherman Oaks. I moved my business to Long Beach in January 2006 and opened a new Long Beach studio in 2007. “

"I still love photography for the same reason I did when I was 9 years old. It allows me to capture something beautiful, and share it with others."

“Although photography is my first love, I also enjoy reading, movies, travel, art, music and the outdoors. I enjoy biking, volleyball, computers, camping and dining out. I play guitar and singing for my church. I was raised a vegetarian, and have stuck to the diet most of my life. My favorite things are flowers, waterfalls, mountains and animals. I speak Spanish well, and visit Mexico several times a year. It is my wish that I may work to bring happiness to the lives of others, work to end to the war, reduce global warming and pollution, and help to preserve some of the natural beauty in this great county.“