On Monday, our producers Jess and Ben dropped by the creatives at Thinkso and The New York Times Magazine. They gave me the skinny on their West-side visits:
Jess (left) discusses our photographer's work with Thinkso staff. All photos by Ben Weldon.
Thinkso is a boutique graphic design firm with a deep toolbox of styles, and a client list to match (a few fun examples here, here, and here). They were particularly interested in seeing portfolios for annual reports and an international investment firm client of theirs, so we focused more on the institutional lifestyle and portrait work of our photographers.
Unlike most portfolio reviews where the creatives stream through over the course of several hours, at Thinkso the entire design team and one of the partners arrived all at once and stayed for nearly an hour, carefully examining each portfolio on display.
Like many graphic design firms these days (and clients, generally), they were more apt to hire photographers who were local to a shoot’s location to keep travel expenses to a minimum. Speaking of locations, we here happy to share Raleigh photographer Bruce DeBoer‘s portfolio:
Also of note: most of them being designers, they were very aware of the designs of our photographers’ leave-behinds. They gave nice feedback in instances where they thought the photographs were better than the design. Which is a warning to photographers: bad or dated presentations (books, prints, leave behinds) reflects poorly on the images. So if you don’t fancy yourself a designer, seek professional design help on your next rebrand!
For lunch, we met up with Andy Delisle, one of our Phoenix photographers who happened to be in town on business. Andy’s often traveling for work, and recently produced a nice series of images from his visits to the Vancouver Olympics.
Andy DeLisle (L) and Jess Dudley (R) noshing at Stout's in Times Square
Next stop was The New York Times Magazine, relatively easy to find because their name’s on the building!
Jess checking out an art installation which randomly pulls from The New York Times archive
It was nice to finally meet Clinton Cargill and the others from the photo department in-person, because we’ve talked with them by phone and email on so many previous occasions, and the magazine’s staff have become frequent users of our site.
Clinton was surprised that more photographers (not referring to ours, in particular) don’t indicate their city on their websites and portfolios. From the start, he would like to know where a photographer lives, because it will often determine whether or not they get the job.
Fortunately, Richard Morgenstein‘s portfolio case clearly indicates that he’s from San Francisco:
The photo editors were all very interested in the books, and took leave-behinds for every photographer that we showed. FYI: if you haven’t heard, The New York Times Magazine just won “Design Team of the Year” at the ADC (Art Director’s Club) Awards, plus a Gold Cube in the Photography category.
We’re fresh from a quick trip to San Francisco, where we shared our photographers’ work at some of the local creative shops, met-up with our Bay Area shooters, and held a cocktail party for everyone.
Jess Dudley, Bill Cramer and Neil Binkley getting ready to skinny dip.
Our excursion began with a visit to the San Francisco treat: advertising giants Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Jess and I, our producer and marketing director, respectively, brought about 20 portfolios to give the art department a good cross-section of our talent. We discussed a few projects, and made sure to let them know additionally about the other photographers on our website.
At our portfolio reviews, art buyers generally remark on the variety and number of books that we present (in addition to the nice spread of food). They also enjoy that our website shows photographers in smaller cities, which they’re often less familiar with.
Neil Binkley, at left, discusses the merits of Brazilian design culture with a Goodby art director from that region of the world.
That evening, we held a reception for our photographers and their admirers at the art gallery/bar, Varnish. We were happy with the location, feel, and layout of the place, which had come recommended from a few San Francisco designers. We’d certainly recommend it to anyone planning an event in the city.
We provided the obligatory drinks and hors d’oeuvres (honestly, I think that was the best turkey sandwich I’ve eaten), and also displayed our local photographers’ portfolios for everyone to flip through. We also projected a slide show of Wonderful Machine photographers’ work from around the globe.
Adam Voorhes' tabletop work projects above our San Francisco photographers' books.
In addition to nice conversations with creatives from Communication Arts, CBS Interactive and elsewhere, it was a wonderful opportunity to meet some of our photographers, in-person, for the first time. So much of what we do is by phone and email, so it’s nice to put a face to a name and have a relaxed moment to find out even more about our talent.
For example, I had no idea that Eric Millette had a pony tail, and was playing soccer against his son the next day in a parent vs. child team game. Or that Sonya Revell was originally from the south. Or that Martin Sundberg had been an APA/San Francisco board member. We thank everyone for coming out for the event.
Neil Binkley, Eric Millette, Sonya Revell, Erin Kunkel, Richard Morgenstein, Martin Sundberg, Bill Cramer, and Jess Dudley.
The next morning before our flight out, Jess and I paid a visit to Sara Filippi at the future-inspired Wired magazine. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have followed many of their articles in the hopes of seeing their sci-fi technology predictions come to fruition..
Sara has always been friendly to us, and gave us good feedback on the kind of work that they like to see. Fortunately, that was the bulk of the photographers’ work that we brought.
We weren't allowed to see the production room because they were getting ready to print. Jess and Sara at right.
One surprise, especially considering that Wired is on the forefront of everything futuristic, is that they still prefer to have projects shot on film! So keep this in mind, photographers. Of course, they will still work with digital-only photographers.
Aside from the $3.50/hr. parking meters in front of Wired, we were charmed by the San Franciscans (?), and hope they felt the same of us. Look for more Wonderful Machine trips to other cities in the near future.
Oh, and if you’re looking for an interesting restaurant on your next trip to San Francisco, we had an inspired meal at Farmer Brown. A native had recommended it to us, and we were impressed with the jambalaya, fried chicken, and honey-jalapeno sauce with cornbread that brought comfort food to a new level. Plus, they projected Beat St. 2, Electric Boogaloo on a screen in the background.
Glasgow, Scotland, born and bred. Started out in philosophy, somehow migrated to photography.
Shot for newspapers in the early 90′s. Now most of his commissions are portraits. He’s "daft" for
cycling. Says when he’s not working, he’s on his bike (a fixed gear at the moment).
Didn’t pursue photography until his senior year of college. Went back to school for commercial
photography, but had a true passion for photojournalism. Worked at Santa Fe Workshops, then
headed to Mexico. Now based in Baltimore, he’s pursuing a personal project on violent crime.
Syracuse University alumnus. Work is in a number of private and public collections including Harvard University’s. His motivation: "to use photography to document our world, explore our perceptions and question our viewpoints." Does multimedia and installation art on the side.
Youngest and only daughter of four. Father and two of her brothers are doctors. Says her mother
is smarter than all of them combined. Originally from Canada, now lives in Bay Area on a hill with
her Dutch husband, Pieter, and golden cat. Loves to do hands-on artwork in her free time.
