By Karrisa Olsen
Last week, the lovely Elyse Leyenberger and I set out for the South with 150 pounds of luggage filled with an array of impressive portfolios. We had the luxury of relaxing once we touched down in Birmingham as our meetings didn’t begin until the morning. So, naturally, we found ourselves at El Barrio, a Mexican downtown hotspot where we inhaled delicious tacos. Seriously, I don’t even remember chewing them.
Our first stop the next morning was at Time Inc. As we drove up a labyrinth-like path to the building, we were wondering if they accidentally sent us to a magical Autumn wonderland. Alas, we were in the right place, as the building was surrounded by creeks, small waterfalls and every leaf shade of the season. There we met photography director Julie Claire and the ladies of Cooking Light, who we were delighted to hear utilize Wonderful Machine’s website often when looking to hire photographers. They were coincidentally working with local photographer Stephen DeVries on the following day. Aside from loving Stephen’s style, they were big fans of the documentary feel that Alan Gastelum‘s work presents as well as Lincoln Barbour‘s food and home decor images. Because of Kyle Dreier‘s art director background, his food photography is more conceptual, as well as colorful and vivid, which really seemed to stand out.
The popularity of those three photographers was consistent among the Southern Living and Coastal Living staff as well. Art Meripol, who was Southern Living’s staff photographer for nearly 25 years, made an appearance in the books we shared and they enjoyed seeing a familiar name. Jessica Glynn‘s clean-cut book of interiors was a favorite between both of the magazines. Coastal was specifically thankful that she is in fact located along the coast (Palm Beach, FL to be exact)–which was the same case for Preston Mack. Local pair Beall + Thomas also left a lasting impression.
If it were up to us we would have never left Time’s beautiful offices, but with three successful meetings under our belt, we made our way to Lewis Communications–a top branding and advertising agency with offices in Birmingham, Mobile and Nashville. As soon as we spotted their bookshelves lined with awards, we knew they were the real deal. Their team was as enthusiastic as we could have asked for, and looked through every book thoroughly. Seeing as how they were not as familiar with Wonderful Machine, we informed them of our directory of photographers, crew, stock request feature and production services–all of which could assist them during future projects. Adair Freeman‘s collection of kids and lifestyle portraits resonated with all of the work Lewis does with children’s hospitals. Landon Nordeman, David Ellis and Mike Nemeth all seemed to fall in line with the work they use at the company as well.
There seemed to be no better way to take a load off (aside from distributing all of our photographers promos and leave-behinds to everyone we met with) than to grab a few drinks at The J.Clyde. It was here that I was introduced to my dream beer: Good People American Brown Ale, a local Birmingham brew. Oh yeah, and I was introduced to some of our photographers from the area, too! It was great to put names to faces, especially after promoting their books all day. Kerri Bunn, a stylist from our Crew page even joined the party.
After exchanging quality laughs and conversation, Elyse and I bid our farewells to the great city of Birmingham. We drove many miles in the dark to Nashville, where we buried our heads into guitar-patterned pillows and memory foam mattresses in preparation for the Southern adventures yet to come. More on those later.
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