Branding yourself is probably one of the most important things you can do as a photographer. It is important to showcase your work, whether it is your best work at the time, your best work overall, or even some of the work you just like most. I personally put up the images I think are best, but a lot of the time, I can be very picky, and I tend not to like certain photos when other people still really like them. This is something that is 100% up to you. You are the person choosing what you want to show as a reflection of you and what you do.
Getting Started
First off, you need to get everything organized and ready to go so you know where it all is in case you ever need to go back to it or add to it. Make sure you separate your work into categories, unless you don’t want it to be that way. Most of the time, we do it this way because it is easy for people to see the different types of work you do or see the type of work you specialize in. Organizing it is something that I would recommend doing, but not something you need to take my word for.
Second, what do you want to show? Think of what you want others to see when they search you. Do you want portraits, weddings, fashion, real estate, or maybe a mix of it all? Export your work and make sure you know the images are yours; you don’t need to watermark them, but make sure they have your copyright embedded in the file.
Where to Build Your Portfolio
Having a place to show your work is great. When you tell people you are a photographer, they will most likely want to see your photography. This is where you can grab their attention, whether it's for fine art, commercial work, or even just for fun. Many websites offer free portfolios, but for me, I like to have a website. For some reason, I feel like having a website is more official and more personal. They do require more work and more maintenance, but you are the one who organizes it and decides how it should look. Why is that a good thing? Because in a way, it shows who you are; it reflects some of your personality. Here are a few places that I tried using, but I will admit that I decided to stick with Squarespace: Squarespace, Wordpress, Wix, Weebly, 500px.
Bios
Whatever you choose to do, make sure you think everything through. The bio is probably one of the hardest parts to write (for me, at least). When it comes to talking about yourself and talking about your work, some people are more comfortable than others doing so. As hard as it is, once you write it all out, it's done. You can go back and fix it up from there, because it isn't permanent, but really take the time to think it through and describe yourself as if you were talking about someone you look up to (maybe I should have thought about that before doing mine).
What to Talk About
Who are you? What do you do? Why do you do it? Explain everything you can about yourself in a few short sentences so people can get an idea of who you are and what you're passionate about. When people see this, they can connect with you, they can understand you, and in this case, they will be more likely to work with you. Think about the advantage you have as an artist over other people with different careers. All they can do is send out a resume; you, on the other hand, have a whole portfolio and a whole website! Right off the bat, anyone who wants to work with you will get an impression of who you are through this. Having this online portfolio will help people be able to connect with you and could be your entryway to a better future. No one will see your work unless you show it.
Why I Think Branding Is Important
Whether you are a business or an individual, our world has come to a point where we have a limited attention span. The use of technology is almost completely out of our control at this point, and if something doesn't work, doesn't look good, or doesn't load fast enough, we give up and move on. Put some time into what you create. Remember you do it for a reason. Think about a business you just searched with a bad website. Did you stay on their page or go to the next one with a better site? Think about how easy it was to browse, how straightforward it was. Did you understand the business from what they provided you on the site? Market yourself like a business does; you want to stand out over the others, especially in a field with so much competition.
Blogs
"Who blogs?" That's exactly what I thought a while back when I started: "I don’t need that because I don’t want to write about things." I don’t want a blog page on my site. Now, look at me reading blogs on other sites and maintaining one of my own. So, why did I get into it? Blogging allowed me to show the work that I wouldn’t usually post on my site. Yeah, I shoot sports, I shoot products, I shoot other things than what I have listed on my work page, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to make a new section for it on my site. I can if I want, but it isn’t something I’m interested in, because I feel like that could interfere with the flow of my site.
Blogs are a way to talk about your other work (even your current work), talk about other people's work, and describe things that we don’t typically talk about anywhere else. They are a learning experience for everyone in this case, whether we say good things or bad things about what we have created or what other people have created. I think that blogs are a great thing to have, and if you don’t have one, you should definitely consider making one on your site so others can see and read about all the other work you have done. Blogs also don’t even have to be about your work; you can really choose anything to write about — other artists, people who inspire you, a company you want to work with — it's up to you. It can’t hurt to have!
Conclusion:
In the end, people just want to know you. You are the artist, the creator, the person for the job. If they didn't want to work with you, they would find someone else. Take the time to make yourself look good; show what you want others to see. Talk about yourself how you'd talk about your favorite artist, and market yourself like you’re a business. Once all this is done, you are set for success: people can find you, get to know you, and even offer to work with you. Just realize that their first impression of who you are as an artist is most likely going to be from what you decide to show them online.
Great points. Branding purveys itself throughout every part of your business. Even in how you interact with people on social media.
Good article, what do you think about Smugmug to create a website? What does work better, a business name or individual name? Is better blogging with text and images or using videos at You tube? And finally, I don´t like to use my portrait in the BIO info, I use a logo image. Is better to use a portrait????
Hey Guillermo, you've got a pretty nice site, but I would recommend getting a proper domain for yourself, they are not expensive. Your host you use doesn't matter as long as your site presents well. It's like the Nikon vs. Canon debate, they are basically the same, what you do with them is more important.
I would recommend using your name, unless you have a really good name for your business. Most photography businesses that don't use the photographer's name sound really dumb, so I would not recommend it, unless you are very good at this sort of thing. Keep it simple.
Thank you Adam
Guillermo, I checked out the site and have to say it is pretty clean right now, not bad! It all depends on how you want everything to work, are you doing photography as a freelancer or a business? Text blogging and video blogging are also very similar, if you are doing videos then thats probably even better! And if you don't want to have a photo in the about me, its not a big deal, it just gives people an idea of who you are. Otherwise, you have some great work. Keep it up!
Thank you Ty, I do photography as a freelancer. By the way, I have my own domain is www.guillermofierro.com.mx and this only redirect to the smugmug site.
Strange title for a strange article. 'Branding doesn't always hurt' - Does it ever hurt?
I completely agree that a photographer should make branding themselves a priority. I'll just add that as someone who recently went through this process, I prefer Format.com. There's a number of features specifically geared towards photography that stood out to me, like being able to password protect galleries so that I could send previews to clients, as well as being able to easily add a watermark over them as well.