My first trip to New York for portfolio meetings went exactly as I had imagined— busy, fast, exhausting and fun. Rachel and I headed out to meet with EastWest Marketing Group, Mother and Martin Agency to chat about Wonderful Machine and show off some of our amazing photographers. Thanks to Rachel’s outstanding city-driving skills, we made it to all of our meetings on time.
The morning was off to a great start as we ventured into our first meeting with the group creative director for EastWest Marketing Group, Rod Gonzalez. Even though he had a busy morning, he was extremely welcoming and interested in hearing more about what we do. He mentioned that he uses stock almost every day for internal and external facing projects and he is looking forward to using our stock photography tool. Monica Stevenson, David Arky and John Kuczala were the three photographers who Rod gravitated to. He mentioned that he tends to hire locally, so when he heard that his favorites were also local, he was impressed.
While flipping through John’s book, Rod stopped and said, “I love the paper quality and the colors are really rich, I want to know where he got this printed!” Check out John’s full portfolio in the video below:
After a quick trip across the city, we were at our next meeting with Mother. Rachel and I met with two of the art producers, Amanda Weidman and Alexia Politis, in the main lobby area of the office. This place was amazing. The office space boasted a huge kitchen (with Stella Artois on tap!), a grizzly bear at the entrance (stuffed) and a beautiful gallery showcasing portraits of all the employee’s mother’s.
Amanda and Alexia were great to meet with. They clearly love what they do and loved all of the portfolios we brought over. While sorting through the books, Rachel set up her laptop to show the Wonderful Machine website interface. Amanda and Alexia were new to the brand and requested a demonstration on how to navigate the site. After a quick demo, they were hooked. Amanda couldn’t believe the large number of photographers on our roster and loved the fact that we have international photographers as well. (Mother also has an agency in London.)
A few of the favorites at this meeting were Evaan Kheraj, Javier Pierini and Samantha Wolov.
We pushed through to our final meeting with the Martin Agency and they didn’t disappoint! We met with art producer Sara Levi, who is a huge fan of Wonderful Machine and uses the site all the time.
Since she was familiar with what we do, Sara spent most of the meeting chatting and sorting through portfolios from Mathew Zucker, Taylor Roades, Derek Israelsen, Dylan Priest, and Tru Studio. Sara mentioned that she has been following Tru Studio’s trip to Japan and has become inspired by their photos to travel there herself one day.
After three meetings and some brutal traffic, we were on our way back to headquarters with new relationships, some new friends and a rekindled love for New York. Until next time!
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