Hi all,
I'm an amateur photographer and I am trying to turn this into a professional career. I'm applying for an internship position with a local gallery and I need help with providing three samples of my work. I've pulled many photos from my hard drive and have eliminated quite a few but I can't get it down to three. I'm hoping I could get some advice as to which images here are strongest, because I am completely unsure what to send.
Any critiques are deeply appreciated.
Thanks!
I like the second image the best but I would ask you to think about your over all goal. What type of photographer do you want to be? What type of images do you need for "examples of your work". Many of these shots look like snapshots of your family or snapshots of landscapes that you have made black and white.
I don't think these images will help you book paying jobs and if you are going for "fine art" I think these images fall short there too.
I think you need to step back, come up with a specific genre to go after, and then set out to make 3-5 amazing images in that genre. Nothing currently that you have here is that impressive and I know that if you gave it some thought and some more time in Photoshop you could really blow us away.
Also, what type of work does that gallery produce? Are they a studio that produces the type of work that matches your current goals as a photographer?
It's, for lack of a better word, an "alternative?" (even typing that makes me feel old and irrelevant) art gallery. The position is requiring photos taken during gallery openings and during events with local musicians. My hopes is that it will give me an opportunity to specialize more and to put some legit background work together, and to just "get out there" because as it is this is an entire career shift and it requires a great deal of courage and humility to come to this decision and not something I take lightly.
Where I am more than aware that I have no "genre specific" direction I have spent my time learning techniques and getting comfortable with my equipment and I was hoping I could at least reflect that I have ability and go from there.
Honestly, I am in a unique position to follow a dream without any scary financial issues, this is what this is about. I don't want to be a photo journalist, a real estate photographer, or a wedding photographer. I just want to take pictures and share the world that I see through my lens
I won't expound on the strongest of the bunch in terms of technique or image quality; I'll just say that 2, 3, and 5 are the one's I pick as favorites. The only reason for my comment is something you said, "I just want to take pictures and share the world that I see through my lens".
There's a kid doing exactly that whose photography I've been following. The story he tells with imagery can be disturbing and maybe even viewed as violent, but his self-justification is just that, he wants to take pictures and share what he see's. As a budding photographer myself, I just thought you could use the encouragement and inspiration. https://500px.com/vuhlandes
Thank you David, I appreciate that