Philly Faces

It all began with an original idea that occurred to photographer Joe Chielli at the very dawn of the internet age. At the time Joe was shooting a lot of headshots for actors and portfolios for models. He realized that it would be synergistically valuable to the actors and models, both independents and those represented by agents, as well as to small businesses in the city, and to his own photography business, to have a website that would be a kind of talent database. He reasoned that it would serve as a talent forum making visible the individual actors and models, along with the agents and agencies that represented some of them, to the business community as a means to help businesses satisfy their booking needs. He realized that it would also be a valuable promotional link to his photography services. Phillyfaces.com launched in the year 2001. By October 2005 it was discovered by the New York Times and appeared in the Sunday theater section as the unique site that featured “talking headshots”. Chielli had envisioned the use of on-line web site video for the casting of actors and models. As a consequence of Phillyfaces.com, Philadelphia actually had an online talent site with video before NYC. See the following link: