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When the Waldorf Astoria Chicago made updates to its hotel, the team needed images for their online marketing efforts. Someone in the marketing department, who previously worked with John Muggenborg in the past, made the suggestion to work with him again. Already knowing John’s skill set going in made the team certain that John was the right man for the job!
Initially, the Waldorf team sent John a basic shot list including a list of rooms that needed to be photographed. The Waldorf Chicago hasn’t had much experience hiring photographers and assumed they only needed John, overlooking the potential need of any assistance. After many back-and-forth emails, John was well aware of the client’s expectations, and he knew exactly how he was going to go about shooting the images successfully.
From there, John suggested hiring a stylist who provided flowers and little touches to make the scene more vibrant and beautiful. Though bringing on a stylist meant a higher budget, the Waldorf was willing to spend more money knowing the imagery would be well worth it in the end. After getting approval from the Waldorf team the shoot was underway!
The shoot took place over the course of two days. John and his team were put up in the hotel for those nights, which John enjoyed. His team even got to indulge in some of the great amenities at the hotel, in addition to experiencing one of its fantastic breakfasts. During the shoot, the team captured imagery including shots of its king suites, conference rooms, its ballroom where weddings and other events are held, plus interiors of the lobby and exteriors of the hotel itself. Shots of the lobby weren’t initially included in the shot list, but John captured images anyway just in case. The Waldorf ended up loving those images and bought those pictures as well.
The hotel owns a fancy car, called a Fisker, we were going to shoot the front of the hotel with and without the car. The Waldorf is part-hotel and part-condos, so while we were shooting, a resident came and parked his Porsche in front of the hotel. It’s such an awesome car to come into our photoshoot accidentally, and it was a silver Porsche, and the Fisker was silver, so at one point we had two luxury silver cars out front.
After shooting all of the necessary images, John sent them over for approval. After a few retouches here-and-there, the client was thrilled with the outcome. These photos are on the hotel’s website, plus they are displayed as online advertisements. Oddly enough, John came across the advertisements featuring his images as he booked a flight for himself to Chicago. As a photographer, seeing your own work in real time never gets old!
Additional Credit:
Stylist: Dean Renaud / South Social & Home
Assistant: Rolando Pellot
See more of John at johnmuggenborg.com!