Did you ever ask yourself who’s behind the business in the world of photographers, models and shootings? Did you ever look into the office of one of this agencies, which work silently in the  background?  No?
Alright – so today C-Heads Magazine makes a small journey to Milano in Italy and visit Valeria and her ‘Valeria Elle Photographer Management + Production’ Office to take a closer look for you…

Valeria, tell our readers a little bit about you – “what” is your agency?
“VALERIA ELLE Photographers mgt + Production” is an agency based in Milano that represents international photographers and now stylist as well, and organizes productions for various type of clients, mainly fashion. That’s to say we propose the work of our artists to magazines, fashion companies and so on and when its requested, we also put toghether a team of people to organize the shootings, such as make- up artists, hairstylists, models, we also do location scouting and so on…

How do you start with your agency?
I started working in the fashion business almost 10 years ago in the model agencies, then, because my real passion was photography, i decided to start my own business – first as a free-lance photographer agent and then 5 years ago, together with a partner, we opened our agency in the city.

You’re are based in Milan, the perfect town for an agency – but is there also a reason aside of photography, jobs, clients and similiar for this town?
Milano is the Italian fashion city, other then my home town, so there is no other place to be for this business in Italy!

For outsiders – how does a normal day in your agency looks like?
A normal day start at the office, we do a lot of work at our desk. Then we are often around for appointments, to meet clients and people from the business to promote our artists work. Eather in Italy or we travel.

You have a mix between photographers, stylists and so on… what are the criterions an artist must have, that you say – “Ok, we represent him!”?
As for the selection of the photographers and stylist, eather we contact them or they contact us, via internet or personal meeting. We choose people according to the request of the market and especially according to the image we have chosen for our agency.

For somebody, who have no idea about this kind of work – how do you search and find locations worldwide? Must be a difficult job… there are so many places everywhere?!
As for the research of location we mainly refere to location-agencies, specifically in the city where we will have to shoot. Sometimes we simply pick an area of the city that could work for the style of the shooting.

Do you also stay on the set during the shootings of your photographers?
Of course, we organize almost everything from the office , but most of the time we are also on the set.

Do you select the models or the photographers?
We organize a shoot and then we select a model according to the style of the client, so what fits better for his image and his product.

Digital photography – everbody can make thousands of photos… did this change the business in the last years?
Digital photography, as for my opinion, changed the business a lot. Especially in term of time. The shooting can be seen real time – and delivered faster. And also the quality of the digital now is very high, even if sometimes of course we still like the “magic” of the film!

Your biggest and hardest job in your career as agency?
Well… i guess i could think about a 3 days shoot for a Jewels client, where we had to create 6 differents sets at the same time, put together a huge number of people and items… crazy!

If tomorrow there are no photographers anymore – what would you do?
Guess… since i love good music and good food .. i would go for a very elegant restaurant with live music !

Last question – your personal tip to go out in Milan?
Armani restaurant and club offers a great scenario for a beautiful night in Milano!

Valeria, thanks for your time!

Agency: www.valeriaelle.com

Interview by Emanuel Sprosec