If you’re just starting off with marketing yourself and your photography business, building and displaying your portfolio is probably at the top of your to-do list. Here are a few aspects to consider when putting together your initial photography portfolio.
As creative-minded people, photographers are proud of their portfolios. Our portfolios are our way of displaying work to potential clients and fellow photographers, and as such, we want to include the photos we’re most proud of within our portfolios to show-off to others. However, there are different facets of portfolio-building that should be considered when attempting to make a strong portfolio. Here are a few points to consider the next time you’re trying to decide what to include, and what not to include in your portfolio.
Don’t Include Entire Sessions
The point of a photography portfolio is to show your best work. This is obvious, but sometimes other aspects or motivations get in the way. Sometimes photographers are inclined to want to include an entire photo session, or multiple photos from the same session in a portfolio to make the portfolio seem robust.
When portfolio-building, try to stay away from doing this. The last thing you want to do is clutter up your portfolio with subpar images in order to make your portfolio seem more full-bodied. You always want to keep in mind that you’re attempting to highlight your best work, and you don’t want your best work to be lost in a sea of images that you’re not entirely satisfied with.
It’s okay if there are a few images from a singular photo session that are stellar and that you feel show your best work, but only include multiple images from the same session if those images are absolutely your best.
Make sure you're only including photos that portray the type of future work you'd like to shoot. For example, although I love off-camera lighting and nighttime weddings, I prefer natural-light daytime weddings and therefore don't include nighttime photos in my portfolio to clients.
Don’t Put What You Don’t Want to Shoot in Your Portfolio
When just starting out with a photography business, sometimes we’ll get clients and photo sessions that we take on just because we need the money or the experience. Even if you have an established photography business, sometimes you’ll get requests for a type of photography that you may not want to display in your portfolio or that you don’t feel goes well with your photography brand.
Even if the photos are quality photos, don’t include them in your portfolio. It is true that you get what you put out with photography and if you’re displaying pictures of a particular style that you’d prefer not to photograph, then putting them in your portfolio isn’t going to help. For example, my off-camera lighting skills as a wedding photographer are strong, and I appreciate the photos I take with off-camera lighting when the situation calls for it, but because I prefer to shoot natural-light weddings, I don’t display my off-camera lighting photos within my portfolio. I learned the hard way that when I did put those photos in my portfolio, I got more requests for photo sessions that required off-camera lighting.
Along the same lines, if you don’t prefer to shoot at a specific venue or location, don’t include photos in your portfolio from those venues. If you’re still proud of a specific type of photography that you shoot, but know you don’t necessarily want clients to hire you for that type of photography, consider a personal portfolio to show to family, friends, and colleagues. Just remember only to display photos you’d like to be hired for in client-facing portfolios.
Don’t Put Different Types of Sessions in Your Portfolio
Although you may dip your hand into multiple types of photography, you shouldn’t be including many types of photography sessions in one portfolio. If you shoot more than one category of photography, you need different portfolios. Wedding clients won’t want to see family photos in your portfolio, just as boudoir clients aren’t interested in seeing food photography.
Make sure you are compartmentalizing photo categories, so you don’t accidentally repel potential future clients. It may seem natural to want to cast your net as wide as possible to attract many types of clients, but by including many types of photography within your portfolio, you’ll actually drive people away. Remember that consumers are looking for a specialist. Your portfolio is a way to show your best work to potential clients and appear as a specialist in a certain type of photography.
Lastly, if your shooting or post-processing style has changed over time, make sure that you’re not including your old style within your portfolio. If you have older photos that you still consider to be the best-of-the-best of your work, re-edit those photos so they’re consistent with the rest of your portfolio. Consistency is vital when it comes to building a stronger portfolio.
Portfolio-building may seem straight-forward, but there are many aspects to consider while choosing what to display. And though your portfolio should be ever-evolving, remembering what you should and should not include will help the strength of your portfolio and how potential clients view your work.
Lead Image by NMQ via Pexels, used under Creative Commons.
In short, your portfolio should contain quality representative samples of what you want to shoot and are good at shooting. That seems fairly obvious, but perhaps it isn't.
Thanks. I will definitely take on a count your advices. Now I'm working as a writer at https://eduzaurus.com/buy-research-paper but I always wanted to become a photographer. So maybe with you advices I will make my first portfolio.