How to Create a Photography Portfolio

Put Your Best Foot Forward

Almost a year ago today, I was sitting in front of my computer looking through thousand’s of my photos to find which ones I wanted to put on my website. I finally got my portfolio, it consisted of 117 photographs. I went through all 117 photos a few times just to make sure I had narrowed it down to what I wanted on display for the public, I had made sure all of the photo’s had correct exposure’s, they didn’t have red eye, and they looked good. I then had one of my photographer friends go through to portfolio and with his help I published 100 photographs to my website.

Double Check

I decided to go through all of my photos again because I have changed tremendously in the way I shoot and edit within the last year. As I was sitting there in front of my computer I did not know what I was doing, I was stumped. I thought about what I wanted my website to look like, what photographs I wanted people to see and how I wanted to display them. I went through my photos again and I redid my portfolio keeping a little bit over half of the photos that I had on my previous website, and adding about 60 new images.

Know Your Client

I then realized that I should not be asking my photographer friends to help me narrow down my portfolio but my non-photographer friends, because my photographer friends are not going to be my clients and I need to know the opinion of someone that is “client-like”. If you have your portfolio critiqued by your photographer friend(s) then you may remove some of the images that are not “right” photo-wise but could potentially make a viewer on your website a client. Show your portfolio to 10 people and have them pick out the 10 worst images, then go over what you have learned and create the perfect portfolio. Remember your clients will not worry about if all the photos in your portfolio follow the rule of thirds, or if all the photos are perfectly color corrected or exposed. The client wants to see real images, don’t put in your very best photos because keep in mind, its better to undersell and over deliver then promise a client something that you can not deliver.

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