This is the Portfolio Module: Module Three
In this module, we will do some deep dives into your work, how it is organized, where you want to go with it, and hopefully identify gaps in it or places you could improve on by adding more photographs.
What is in your portfolio now?
Will it – or is it – landing you commercial clients?
This is always the hard part… Looking at our own work with a critical eye toward what is and what is not our best work. And then to ask if the work is the kind of work, or the caliber of work, that will get jobs in the door.
Your portfolio is your calling card, your best advertising, your credibility, your most powerful visual statement, and your proof that you can do what you say you can do.
“I’m a photographer…” only goes so far. At some point someone will simply ask you to prove it. The proof is your portfolio.
Look at your images, those in your current ‘book’. Look critically and answer these questions;
Do these images live up to the needs of my clients or clients I would like to have?
Are these images relevant to the type of work I want to do?
Are they relevant to the work being done in my region?
Now take each image and write down two places where that image could be used to sell a product or a service. It is not hard to do with an image that has the right values. It may be harder to do if the image doesn’t meet any of the criteria.
FPCN – IMAGE USES – Print this PDF and use it for making notes on your images.
Body of Work vs Collection of Images
One will impress your mom, the other a will impress clients wanting to hire a photographer
A body of work is one that contains images that tie to one another in some visual way. It can be a point of view, a subject choice, the way a photographer uses light or chooses a lens. A body of work contains images that are authentically the photographers. They are images that seem to fit and belong next to the other images.
Often times this is what people refer to as a photographer’s “style”. The body of work is the context and the individual images contained in it help define the work as a cohesive vision. It is this cohesive vision that we want to project.
Look at these photographers for some ideas of what a “body of work” looks like:
Ryan Pfluger | Scott Toepfer
Joel Grimes | Albert Watson
Sarah Moon | VK Rees
Chris Crisman | Adam Voorhes
ASSIGNMENT ONE:
Find at least three photographers who are doing what you want to do who have a very clear Body of Work approach to their portfolio.
