February brought freezing winds, snow and a whole lot of gray, but it also brought another round of portfolio meetings! This past month, Claire, Jillian and I headed to up to New York to meet with The American Lawyer, Refinery29 and McKinney.
Claire, right, and I pushing portfolios through the Big Apple.
First up was our meeting with Maggie Soladay, a photo editor at the American Lawyer, a publication that covers news about the business of law. After walking through their bustling office space and a quick stop in their kitchen that housed numerous fancy coffee and tea machines (and made us super jealous), we stepped into their conference room for our meeting with Maggie.
From left to right, Claire, Maggie Soladay and Jillian talk about our services while looking through Chad Hurst’s portfolio.
Maggie had requested books showing environmental portraiture, and while looking through the books we had brought, she shared some of her tips for top quality presentation and creating a good leave behind. Maggie stressed how important it is to have your (current!) location in your book along with any print promos. She said one of the biggest factors in keeping promotional materials from a photographer is whether she’ll want to hang them in her office or not, even if that means choosing an image she wouldn’t necessarily hire you for.
Maggie was excited to learn that we have members all over the world, especially in China, where they frequently hire photographers. She was happy to see Eric Millette‘s portfolio, with whom she’s worked with in the past, and loved the portraiture work in Stephanie Diani‘s book. She also got a good laugh out of the fun images in Chad Hurst‘s portfolio, and enjoyed looking through the work of Mark Hill and Peter Baker.
After spending a good bit of time laughing and chatting with Maggie, we packed up and ran (seriously… ran!) down the street to the offices of Refinery29, a fashion and lifestyle website with more than one billion pageviews each year. We walked past their colorful sign into their open offices and were greeted by photo editor Lizzy Oppenheimer and her colleagues for a fun, informal meeting.
The Refinery29 offices are visually appealing, to say the least!
Jillian, second from right, passes out print promos to Refinery29’s photo editors.
The photo editors at Refinery29 were excited to see books from some of our photographers who have personal projects documenting women’s issues, as those stories tend to generate the most traffic for them. They were also familiar with many of our members: they had worked with Thomas Liggett in the past and were excited to see his book, along with Lauren Perlstein, who senior photo editor Laura Zisa is very friendly with, and Monica Stevenson. Take a look through Thomas’s book below:
After chowing down on a quick lunch from Panini & Co, we headed to our last meeting at McKinney, an innovative ad agency with offices in Durham, NC and New York. We navigated through some ice and snow and made it in one piece to their Little Italy-adjacent building.
As soon as we walked in, we were happy to see that the office had a fun vibe with music playing and people talking. Elias Kakomanolis, the director of creative operations, explained to us that the building used to be a nightclub and they were lucky enough to inherit the sound system. We walked up a beautiful spiral staircase to the second floor and set up in a conference room that had an entire windowed wall overlooking Broome Street. The room let in gorgeous light, even on a gray day.
Me basking in the natural light in McKinney’s office overlooking Broome Street.
Our guests arrive! Creatives at McKinney enjoy some food and drinks while browsing through our photographers’ books.
At left, the view of Broome Street from the McKinney office. At right, Mary Liao relaxes while checking out Natalie Faye’s book.
Because the creatives at McKinney work with so many different clients, they were happy to see the variety of books that we had brought along. As we enjoyed snacks and coffee from Dean & DeLuca, everyone was filtering in and out, taking seats in armchairs or on the floor and flipping through whichever books were in reach.
Among the many well-received books were Chad Holder, James Quantz Jr. and Roy Ritchie. Account director Mary Liao also loved the beautiful images in Hillary Maybery‘s book. When we told her that Hillary had just recently transitioned from retail to commercial work, she shared a fun anecdote about how she unknowingly ended up having one of Thailand’s most well-known photographers shoot her wedding (getting married in Thailand? Check out Narakorn).
After ending the day on a high note, we packed up, blasted the heat and settled in for the ride home. See ya soon NYC!
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