June brought us the official start of summer, as well as another round of portfolio meetings. In hindsight, going to Dallas in the summer was perhaps not the most comfortable for meetings (it’s getting hot in here), but they were successful nonetheless. Over the course of two and a half days, Claire and I met with Tractorbeam, Pace Communications, The Marketing Arm, Brand Hatchery, Alchemy at AMS, Caliber Creative and RBMM and showed off a ton of our awesome photographers.
The team at Tractorbeam checks out portfolios.
Tractorbeam couldn’t have been a better start to our trip, as the group of creatives that joined us were not only welcoming and interested in books, but a ton of fun and had some great stories to share. They liked the work of Greg Miller and Colin M. Lenton, and especially enjoyed the still life work of C.J. Benninger.
After running from their air-conditioned office to our air-conditioned car, we were off to Pace Communications. Pace handles the in-flight magazine for Southwest Airlines, and also works with Verizon, Four Seasons and a ton of other great clients. We were so happy to hear they use WM all the time to find photographers, especially for their portraiture shoots. They were familiar with Tadd Myers and Kevin Marple, and loved the work of Joseph Escamilla.
I sit down with the creatives at Pace Communications to talk about our photographers.
That evening we also held our happy hour to meet up with some local Dallas photographers. While we were prepared for the heat, we weren’t prepared for a storm to knock out the electricity at a ton of places, including the location we had planned to meet. It just made it all that much better when Scott Slusher, Pete Lacker, Andy Klein and Tadd Myers still made it out to join us (and thankfully the power came back eventually, along with the air conditioning).
Andy Klein, Tadd Myers, Scott Slusher, Claire, Pete Lacker and myself beat the heat with some local brews.
The next morning, we kicked things off bright and early with a meeting at Brand Hatchery. Aaron Opsal, the owner and creative director, was incredibly warm and inviting, and his team was no different. They had asked to see a variety of work, and really enjoyed Gabe Border’s architecture work and Kyle Dreier’s conceptual food work, and nearly everyone was salivating over Elizabeth Cecil’s dreamy lifestyle and food books.
The team at Brand Hatchery gathers ’round to admire all of our talented photographers.
We also stopped by Alchemy, the agency housed within AMS, a production company that offers original programming, as well as studio spaces. Walking into the building was like walking onto a movie set (and we were later told that they do indeed film within their own offices on occasion). They told us they use local Dallas photographers frequently, and especially liked Pete Lacker’s and Terri Glanger’s portfolios.
The Alchemy at AMS office space.
Until next time (hopefully in the winter), Dallas!
After a whirlwind few days and seven more meetings under our belt, we headed back to Philadelphia to cool off and prepare for the next round.
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