Portfolio Events: The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

We pride ourselves in knowing who hires photographers and where. That desire to stay on top of the industry keeps us on a steady diet of overseas phone calls and meetings in cities like New York and Washington, DC. That said, there are a lot of great clients right here in Philly, and we like to see them whenever we can. Earlier this month, with cheesesteak in hand (no, not really!), Jemma Dilag and I packed up some portfolios and made a quick trip to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Our meeting was with Creative Services Director Karuna Krishna and Senior Content Producer Mike Kaiser. Neither of them knew much about Wonderful Machine before our meeting, so we gave them a general overview of the services we provide, including shoot production, which they were most excited about. 

Mike explained that whenever they organize shoots for the school they go through a lot of paperwork: a separate invoice for everyone on set from the photographer down to hair and makeup. What’s more, all of the participants need to be registered vendors with the university, which creates its own separate set of paperwork. That’s where Wonderful Machine comes in. We explained if they hire Wonderful Machine for a shoot production, we would run the whole production and send one invoice for everything at the end of the shoot. One vendor to onboard and one vendor to pay! 

We then offered to show them some portfolios.  From our conversation earlier, we discovered that they only look at lifestyle and portraiture, with maybe a tad bit of corporate photography mixed in. They also explained to us that they prefer a more journalistic approach to their images. They want everything to look natural and authentic, nothing too posed or smiley.

With that in mind, we showed them the books of Colin Lenton and Greg Miller.  Both photographers specialize in portraiture and lifestyle, and both capture their subjects in authentic ways. Colin, as it turns out, is someone they have worked with in the past, and they try to hire him whenever possible.

We also presented portfolios of Doug Levy and Marisa Guzman-Aloia. Both of them shoot portraiture, and both often work with corporate clients for whom they tend to pose their subjects a bit more. Marisa’s images, in particular, can get “smiley,” but the team seemed to have appreciated her approach as well. 

Once we wrapped up our portfolio review, Jemma and I passed out some shirts and mugs and were on our way. You never know what the future holds, but we left feeling as though we may have just begun a wonderful relationship. (Pun intended.)

Have questions about how we promote our photographers? Check out our Membership page. Want to know how you can get the most out of your Wonderful Machine membership? Check out our Jumpstart page or just reach out!