Last week, Ann, Sean, and I met bright and early for a busy day of meetings and portfolio events at agencies in New York City. After a bit of tunnel traffic and a few well-deserved coffees, we started our day at the Anomaly office in SOHO. The art buyers at Anomaly were already familiar with WM and enjoyed being able to page through our member portfolios in person.
The art buyers were happy to learn of our simple stock request page and spent some time discussing current projects with us. The senior art buyers were particularly impressed with Kyle Dreier’s leather-bound portfolio of food photography.
Next, we headed to the colorful offices of Cramer-Krasselt on Broadway. After a fun ride in a 100-year-old freight elevator with its operator, Jimmy, we met with art director Alain Baburam.
We enjoyed our ride with freight elevator operator Jimmy before meeting with Alain at Cramer-Krasselt. Jimmy has been working in the 100-year-old elevator for 28 years!
Alain was looking for photographers to consider for current projects with a grocery store client and a popular beverage brand. He was specifically on a quest to find a food and still life photographer with a “darker” style for Cramer-Krasselt’s major alcoholic beverage client. Alain browsed thoroughly through the portfolios that we brought for him, really enjoying the food work from David Arky and Adriana Mullen.
Last but certainly not least, we headed to Midtown for a portfolio review at the BBDO office. Many of the art buyers at BBDO have used our site and were happy to hear about our production services and browse through the work of our wealth of photographers. A few people told me that they love being able to search by location for photographers since BBDO has a variety of clients from around the world. Many of the “newbies” in the business were impressed with the quality of our members’ work and happily grabbed some business cards for future reference.
Dozens of art buyers, illustrators, and directors showed up to enjoy WM portfolios, beer, and sushi during our portfolio review at BBDO’s NYC office.
The creatives at BBDO enjoyed a spread of craft beer and sushi during the afternoon portfolio event and stocked up on leave-behinds before heading out for the day. While all the portfolios were a hit, BBDO staffers were especially impressed with portfolios from Andy Reynolds, Austin Hargrave, and Victor Wang.
As the day wound down, some of the art buyers took me to get an inside look at the not-so-secret bar in the office at BBDO. Central Filing, located behind a plain door on the 8th floor, was a magical room stacked with ancient filing cabinets and manned by bartender Joe, who has been serving up drinks to BBDO employees for 24 years.
I got to end the day with a visit to BBDO’s not-so-secret office bar. And after a couple of photo ops with the local celebrity/bartender, we packed up and braved the NYC rush hour to head back home. Our busy day in the city was well-worth-it: we met some great people and had an awesome time showing off our member photographers. Until next time, NYC!
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