Last week, Elyse Leyenberger and I were up bright and early, cruising down Route 95 towards our nation’s capitol for another round of portfolio meetings.
After fighting a bit of traffic on our way into the city, we made our way to the first meeting at McMurry/TMG. There, we met with photo editors Sara Elder, Rob Waymouth, and Caroline Couig. They were already familiar with Wonderful Machine and use our site often to search for photographers. I was also happy to learn that Caroline often prints out our weekly spotlight emailers to keep in mind for upcoming projects.
Caroline, Sara, and Rob spent time looking through the books we had selected for them as we let them know about our stock and crew pages. They recognized the work of local photographer Brooks Kraft who they have worked with before, while they also enjoyed the books of Michael Schoenfeld, Andy Reynolds, and local members Robb Scharetg, Matt Rakola, and Vincent Ricardel.
After a quick bite to eat and a stroll past the white house (no signs of the president, unfortunately), we arrived at our next meeting— the colorful office of Hanley Wood. There, we met with art directors Robb Ogle, Brian Wilson, and Sarah Bell. We chatted with them about our services and made recommendations for specific projects (as Robb and Sarah both have upcoming projects in San Fran) while they browsed the different portrait and architecture books we had set out.
Robb, Brian, and Sarah had worked with Brad Feinknopf before and were happy to browse his new book. They also enjoyed the beautiful resort work from Devon Stephens as well as Michael Schoenfeld and Jessica Glynn.
After chatting about their publications and all of the ways that we (and our photographers) can help them out, they grabbed some leave-behinds, and we headed off to our next meeting at RP3 Agency in Bethesda.
At Rp3 Agency, we were met by Senior Art Director Jamin Hoyle. A large group of employees joined Jamin and us to happily browse through all the books we had set out for them. They let us know that they love the luxury of flipping through a print portfolio, as opposed to looking at work on a digital screen. They enjoyed the nice leather-bound book of Chad Holder, as well as the work of Matthew Gilson, CJ Benninger, and Andy Reynolds. The WM t-shirts were well received at RP3, and after handing out those and some leave-behinds, we were on our way.
Our final stop of the day was The Irish Inn at Glen Echo, where we met with local members Robb Scharetg, Matt Rakola, Vincent Ricardel, Brooks Kraft, Rebecca Drobis, and Jason Hornick. Good times and a few beers were had by all, and it was great to put some names to some faces!
Exhausted but very accomplished, we headed back to Philly. Another successful day of meetings in the books!
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