BILD 2025 Recap, with CJ Wolfe, Maria Clinton & Benjamin Von Wong
B&H Photography Podcast
From Athlete to Artist: A Creative Journey
In this chapter, a former collegiate athlete shares their transformative journey into photography, emphasizing the importance of community and resource-sharing within the creative industry. They reflect on personal influences from music videos and early digital platforms like MySpace that shaped their artistic vision. The discussion highlights the value of appreciation for art, the significance of nurturing young talent, and future aspirations for expanding their creative studio.
Above Photograph © Matt Emond
Summertime is the season for travel. With that theme in mind, in today’s show, we’re taking you on a short trip around the block to revisit a few of our favorite encounters from B&H’s 2025 Bild Expo.
During two days in June, we engaged with the many thousands of Expo attendees who converged at New York’s Jacob Javits Center for the show. From our sleek podcast console/recording station adjacent to the Bild stages, we shared our favorite listens and offered advice to the many inquisitive creatives wanting to start up a podcast of their own. Amid all the noise and excitement, we also found the chance to record short interviews with a few of our visitors who had inspiring stories to tell, three of which we’re presenting today.
So, sit back and enjoy these conversations with Philadelphia-based photographer, entrepreneur, and community organizer CJ Wolfe; New York-based filmmaker, producer, and podcaster Maria Clinton; and Canadian-born, globetrotting visual engineer and environmental activist Benjamin Von Wong.
Guests: CJ Wolfe, Maria Clinton, & Benjamin Von Wong
Episode Timeline:
- 2:32: Philadelphia-based photographer, entrepreneur, and community organizer CJ Wolfe talks about how a camera changed his life, leading him to found Immortal Vision Studios, and a related creative agency.
- 7:58: Reminiscing about how CJ’s early love of coding inspired him to customize MySpace profiles for his friends as a youth.
- 12:58: CJ’s creative goals for the future and the inspiration to get his studio on wheels to expand.
- 14:34: CJ talks about business shifts and the new ideas he gets from interns—rather than thinking, look to AI.
- 21:27: New York-based filmmaker, producer, and podcaster Maria Clinton riffs about generational shifts in the realm of content creation.
- 27:00: The underlying question of who you’re creating for and why?
- 29:05: The difference between content creation and filmmaking.
- 32:21: Maria talks about The Little Souvenirs podcast, the types of stories she and her co-host tell, and where you can find the show.
- 33:45: Bild speaker, visual engineer, and environmental activist Benjamin Von Wong reminisces about his previous conversation with the podcast and the challenges he faced back then about continuing his journey as an artist.
- 38:06: Ben’s recent projects, and his theory of activating change by finding the nexus of the right place, the right time and the right people.
- 43:02: Ben’s accidental path to becoming an environmentalist, plus the need to shift his activism from a burden of duty to a place of love.
- 46:28: Ben talks about how community involvement has evolved within his work, to create engagement greater than the sum of its parts—what it takes to fix the world.
- 50:18: The economics of large-scale production and how fundraising has changed Ben’s relationship to his art by helping him believe in his own work.
Guest Bios:
CJ Wolfe picked up a camera eight years ago, while pursuing college studies as a student-athlete. Since that time, he has made an impact both globally and within the Philadelphia creative scene, where he first got his start. A true staple in the city’s culture, CJ has influenced sports, music, and lifestyle through his creativity behind the scenes and, most importantly, behind the camera. Wolfe has produced work for Red Bull, Footlocker, Ethika, Block Inc, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Baby, Meek Mill, and Allen Iverson to name a few. Throughout his journey, Wolfe recognized a major gap in Philadelphia—a lack of safe, inspiring spaces for photographers to refine their craft, showcase their talents, and build professional networks. In response, he founded Immortal Vision Studio in 2020, which has grown into a cornerstone of the city’s creative community. Now operating two boutique studios totaling 6,000 square feet and booking over 2,000 appointments per year, Wolfe has built Philadelphia’s most trusted rental powerhouse for photo and video production. Wolfe also has another layer to the business besides studio rentals and community. Immortal Vision Agency—a creative firm producing high-impact content for brands and businesses—bridging the gap to provide professional opportunities and elevate talent from his hometown to the world stage.
Maria Clinton is a New York-based filmmaker, podcaster, and educator. Her past freelance clients include About.com, Hudson Group, and various nonprofit organizations. As a filmmaker Maria’s work focuses on finding and sharing untold stories that shed light on underrepresented groups of people, shattering stereotypes and reconstructing narratives. She co-directed the Emmy-Award winning documentary short The Love Bugs—about an entomologist couple who amassed the world’s largest private collection of insects. As a podcaster, Maria is co-creator and co-host of The Little Souvenirs Podcast. She and co-host/writer Kimberly Mallory discuss a variety of topics with their guests including life’s moments that gift us impressionable little souvenirs. They believe each episode is a reminder to celebrate the moments that matter most. It’s time to enjoy the journey!
Benjamin Von Wong’s work lies at the intersection of fantasy and photography and combines everyday objects with shocking statistics. It has attracted the attention of corporations like Starbucks, Dell, and Nike and has generated over 100 million views for causes like ocean plastics, electronic waste, and fashion pollution. In 2018, he was named one of Adweek’s 11 content branded masterminds. He is also a creative advisor for the Ocean Plastic Leadership Network and the Sustainable Ocean Alliance.
Stay Connected:
CJ Wolfe
Immortal Vision Studio
Maria Clinton
Benjamin Von Wong
- Website
- X
- YouTube
- Benjamin Von Wong on the B&H Photography Podcast: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/podcasts/building-and-maintaining-your-web-presence-alex-vita-ben-von-wong
- Host: Derek Fahsbender
- Senior Creative Producer: Jill Waterman
- Senior Technical Producer: Mike Weinstein
- Executive Producer: Richard Stevens
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