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Here is one of my small 8x10" "travel" portfolios. You can
find small bound books like this at most office supply stores
for under $10. With properly prepared prints you can produce
a terrific looking portfolio for very little money.
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A well-crafted portfolio should
also have some sense of order. I like to structure a portfolio with a
beginning, a middle, and an end. This way if I actually get the change
to narrate my way through a presentation I can start with the self-assigned
promo work, get into the meat of my client-assigned advertising work,
and finish with my national ad tear sheets from magazines. It's a nice
build-up and makes for a great "story."
What about the photographer
who doesn't plan on dropping his portfolio off at a major ad agency any
time soon? Even if you have no commercial aspirations you should have
a "book" that you can pull out of a drawer that instantly defines who
you are as an artist. Why? Because if you take your photography seriously
and want to share your work with others, you may not always have the opportunity
to show off your matted and framed prints. A small portable portfolio
solves the problem nicely.
How to assemble a really killer
portfolio? Here are some quick tips:
Three Words: Edit, Edit,
Edit. Any good photographer knows not only how to take great pictures,
but also how to edit out the not-so-great images. I know it's hard not
to fall in love with your own work, so sometimes it pays to bring in a
fresh set of eyes. I show my stuff to everyone--the wife, clients, the
FedEx guys, whoever is handy. I try and get everyone to be as honest as
possible, and in some cases I've pulled stuff that I really liked.
Once you assemble your images
it pays to keep an open mind. Pictures that made it through your initial
decision making process may get less than stellar reactions. In my case
I had an image shot with a Better Light 6000 scanning camera. While the
image and print were amazingly sharp and clean, for some reason clients
thought the image looked "digital." I'm sure they were reacting to the
finish of the product in the image, but nevertheless I pulled it quickly.
The first lesson you should learn about a body of work is you should never
have to make excuses for your work. The work should stand on its own.
If that means you have a book with five great pictures, having edited
30 so-so pictures out, so be it.
Tell A Story. Even if
your portfolio consists of casual shots of friends and family or pictures
of trees in winter, you should be able to talk your way through a portfolio
presentation. While it's certainly OK to show a group of images that have
nothing to do with each other, you should be able to explain your rationale
for capturing each image in the first place. While I feel it is important
not to make excuses for your work, you do need to explain your work when
asked.
Creating The Right Viewing
Environment. While you can't control the lighting conditions where
your portfolio will be viewed, you can control how the pictures are presented.
Do you want the photos to run full-bleed on the page? A black or white
border? Perhaps a jazzy frame printed around the image, or the edges of
a negative carrier filed to produce the tell-tale black border. Different
printing techniques can produce wildly different impressions of the same
image.
Lately I've gone to an all-white
sheet with the image printed in the center with a thin black border. I
feel that it gives the images that "gallery" look, and the extra white
space makes colorful images look very rich and bright. Images framed with
all black can be extremely dramatic as well, but I've found that black
tends to demand really dramatic pictures. While I have a lot of dramatic
images, I like to mix in a lot of people photography, which frankly looks
better on white.
Have Some Style. Look,
you've got to have some style. While you can get away with a bunch of
images pasted into a regular old photo album, the extra time and expense
required to create a really beautiful portfolio will be rewarded with
many compliments and assignments. Most camera stores carry the traditional
portfolio. You know the one--the black vinyl case with the thin Mylar
sleeves. These books work well for casual usage, but to make a good impression
you may want to investigate a more stylish piece. I use a large Panodia
Pro Book, which is very slim and sleek with interchangeable pages. I have
five different Pro Books, one large 12x18 book and four identical 8x10
books. The 8x10s get dropped off at agencies and Federal Expressed to
clients in far-flung places.
For those really looking for
a stylish presentation there are any number of companies that can produce
custom-made portfolio cases crafted from wood, plastic, or even metal.
Given the realities of actually getting work, your book is going to get
quite beat up. It probably does make sense to invest in a really good
sturdy portfolio that can withstand the rigors of the street. Even if
your portfolio is just for your own personal use, a gorgeous presentation
really impresses the depths of your devotion to your craft on your potential
viewer. Face it: If your best work consists of a bunch of drugstore prints
in a drugstore photo album, how serious are you?
How To Assemble The Portfolio.
Once you've decided which images to use, it's time to decide how to print
them. Once upon a time you were limited to conventional black and white
prints, type C or type R prints from negatives and slides respectively,
or pricey Cibachrome prints. I always opted for the Cibas, even though
their super glossy surface quickly got dulled by the rubbing of the Mylar
sleeves. It used to cost anywhere from several hundred to several thousand
dollars to have all of your best work printed up by a custom lab. Besides
the money, there was the issue of getting everything just right, and enduring
the delays of endless reprints. Today there are Epson photo printers,
and the revolution is underway!
I print everything on one of
my half dozen Epson printers. Lately I use the 1270 with Epson's Heavy-weight
Matte paper. This paper gives decent tonal range and saturation for a
non-glossy paper, and lays flat and true under the Mylar sleeve of the
typical portfolio page. Since I shoot lots of commercial work with high-resolution
Megavision and Better Light digital cameras, my digital work is tack-sharp.
My film work is scanned on a Leafscan 45, a high-end film scanner. I can
make prints in my studio that rival, and in some cases surpass, the quality
I used to pay top dollar for at the lab.
Now, don't get carried away
with this digital revolution. Unless you own a really high-end digital
capture device or a good dedicated film scanner, you'll be printing up
images that really can't match the quality of images printed conventionally.
While you may be amazed at how good your desktop produced prints look,
to your viewer they'll look a little softer, a little fuzzier, and a little
weirder than regular old C prints. Only go the digital route if you are
willing to have your good images scanned by a service bureau or onto a
Photo CD. While flat-bed scanners have come a long way, their film scanning
abilities still can't quite match the quality produced by a drum scanner
or high-end film scanner like an Imacon Flextight.
If you have printed work then
it's a bit easier. Tear sheets from magazines can be easily mounted to
a piece of black or white artist's paper with some contact cement, and
should last for some time. If your work is being reproduced in brochures
or as magazine ads, try and get as many copies from the client as you
can. You'll wear them out eventually, and it's nice to have backups.
Getting Your Work Seen.
Every artist needs to have his or her work seen. Even if you have total
contempt for your audience, there is still the desire to expose your work
to as many people as possible. In my line of work it's easy to figure
out whom to show my work to--potential clients. I try and expose my work
to the right people at ad agencies, PR firms, and corporate marketing
departments. Having the four smaller portfolios has been a big help, because
now I can actually send the same portfolio to two or three different people
within the same company.
Well before I had any professional
aspirations I had a student portfolio. I took it with me wherever I went.
After all, how else could I prove that I was a "serious" photographer?
I'm not suggesting you carry a 16x20 portfolio with you to the dentist's
office, but if you're involved in camera clubs, community activities,
or any other opportunities to gather with a group of people, bring along
your portfolio and gauge the reaction. I learn something about my abilities
and myself every time someone looks at and comments about my work.
In a future issue I plan to
cover the field of digital portfolios, web sites, and other digital promotions.
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