JT Spunk | Photography

Portfolio Building Advice – Do’s and Don’ts

Every year thousands of photographic students graduate and proudly display the pride of their portfolios at trade events, small exhibitions and graduation shows.  I have been visited by many photographers with their portfolios and it can be great to see the work of young talent.

Unfortunately a surprisingly large percentage of them make the same visual pho pas and simple mistakes as the lot from the year before and we cringe and bite our knuckles, as we think they will later, when they look back at these pictures and ask themselves, “Why on Earth did I show that to the World?”  And at the other end, “Why wasn’t I brave enough to experiment during my student years?”

So here are a few do’s and don’ts.  Just my opinion of course but this is what works and doesn’t for me.

Do have more than one portfolio.  Have a general purpose portfolio (at least to begin with).  You can have other specialised portfolios as well.

Don’t include anything too graphic in your general portfolio.  Imagine, your portfolio viewer had a hard day yesterday.  Perhaps someone in their family is unwell or maybe they have just been working very hard.  They are just started their day, having their morning coffee, looking forward to seeing the portfolio of a stranger, perhaps for commercial work or a social photography assignment and all of a sudden they are plunged into a dark place by shock pictures, “Oh no, I didn’t want to see that!”

That has ruined someone’s morning and made them question the judgement of the person they have just met.  Is  that aspiring and hopeful photographer is going to get the job?  Fat chance!  Yet every year we see the same pictures making portfolios and exhibitions.  I’m not saying don’t experiment.  Run a few portfolios and if you want to make fetish, druggie or horror pictures with your friends or photograph each other with guns and balaclavas, go ahead and then put those pictures in a portfolio that you share with people of similar interests.

Do photograph people.  People are far harder to photograph well than inanimate objects.  The student years are the time to experiment and make the mistakes, so don’t be afraid or worried if you get a poor grade on an early project in year one or two.  Of course, you want to impress and get good grades but you there primarily to learn, experiment and improve.  This may appear to be the battleground but it is not.  This is just a sparring gym and you can learn a lot by trying out new techniques and ideas here.  Try and see the bigger picture (the industry that awaits you) and don’t get bogged down in competing with your peers.  This is your opportunity to learn, so push your own boundaries, rather than looking for a quick fix.   To begin with, nearly everyone finds photographing people very difficult.  Many then walk away from that subject matter, believing that they cannot do it and choose to pick lower fruit.  Continue to work on it and you can overcome those difficulties.

When I look over a portfolio and I see inanimate objects or landscapes, I judge those images with the highest criteria.  The subjects tend not, in themselves, to be difficult to deal with.  Therefore the photography had better be outstanding to be worthy.  However, with people we understand that the subject matter is complex and difficult and often awkward, so if I see a collection of portraits, for instance, that are pretty good but not perfect,  I would judge the photographer to be better, more aspirational, improving and more worthy, than the photographer who has some very good landscapes or still life setups.  Of course, this isn’t going to be the case if the job specifically requires a product photographer but it’s a general principal for a general portfolio.

Don’t show photographs that are other people’s setups .   We all know that you can go to photographic trade fayres or go on seminars or group shoots and there will be studio setups, often with models posing in exotic clothing and make-up for the purpose of lectures, product promotion or demonstration. Hundreds of amateur photographers turn up and make the same picture but they didn’t come up with that idea, book that model, make-up artist, fashion designer and hair stylist, nor did they build and decorate that set and configure those lights.  These pictures turn up in student portfolios without any explanation and the viewer has to ask the questions relating to the image that outshines the rest of their portfolio by a mile and then the truth is revealed and now the question in their head is, “So why did you just try and pass it off as your own work?  And where else shouldn’t I trust you?”

Do make and include pictures that are well executed technically, or fun or sensitive or humorous, that capture action or say something about the subject, that provide and present something positive or tell a story.  Quiet pictures can really hold a viewer’s attention, so find some space to say something quietly.

Don’t leave your weak shots in at the back of the portfolio, to bulk it out.  The viewer may actually get to the end and now you finish on a low.  Cut them out and just show what you believe in.  Like a good story, a good portfolio will have a start, middle and end.

Do make an effort to present your pictures in a uniform fashion.  There are some tidy and relatively inexpensive portfolio solutions on the market.  Unless your thing is pop-art, we don’t need a scrap book solution.   Likewise with framing and mounting.  It does matter.  You don’t need to spend the Earth but you do need to put thought and planning into a display.

Do make an effort to influence whose pictures yours go next to in group exhibitions.  Let’s imagine you have been following shepherds and have produced a set of pictures for a show that show people and animals in the landscape at different times of day and night.  You are proud of them and they are a nice set of pictures to look at.  They take the viewer to a peaceful place where the elements are both unforgiving and at the same time provide clarity, calm and also provoke the viewer’s imagination.  You put these up in your allocated exhibition space and then your fellow students arrive.  To your left – up goes a set of horror, gore, splat. To your right – druggie needles and fetish pictures.  “Thanks friends!”  With a bit of forethought and negotiation you could instead share a wall with the nicely lit still lives of coloured bottles and some portraits of retired soldiers.

About the Author

David Day BA(Hons) LBIPP is a professional photographer and business owner based in Nottingham www.ddpweddings.co.uk

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