What Makes a Good Photography Portfolio? Portfolio Tips and Ideas from Photographer Kate Woodman
– So portfolios are important
because they're your way of curating your best work. I think ultimately when people are looking at your portfolio, they
are looking for something that they can identify with, and something that they can sell. You're dealing with people who are looking at a ton of work. They have a very short attention span. So you have to knock them off their feet, in the very first image.
Put your strongest work in the beginning of your portfolio, your newest work, anything that you're the most proud of, but you also have to have a good flow. There has to be a rhythm to your work. You can't put two incredibly disparate images next to each other. So you wanna find certain themes whether it's color, whether
it's subject matter, and try to find a rhythm and place those like things together, so the transition between
images make sense. (upbeat music) My portfolio is pretty long. I have probably 80 images, but I also have a condensed
version of my portfolio as well. So if I know I'm going into a meeting and I have a little time,
I'll bring in the longer one, and let them sit with it. But sometimes you know
you're going into a meeting, you only have a short period of time. In that case, I would bring in probably your best 20 to 30 images. Wow them with great
work and keep it short.
I try to update my portfolio
probably twice a year. I find that every six
months I've got enough additional work, that I
wanna throw it in there and rearrange things a little bit. I have a printed and a digital portfolio, but I really feel that
people have responded to printed portfolios better in my case. I printed it fairly large. It's 11 by 17 and for whatever reason, I think putting a printed
image in front of someone, helps them to linger a little
bit longer on that shot, versus just swiping through digitally.
I certainly think great presentation in your physical portfolio helps, but at the end of the day, people really just wanna
see your photography. They really just wanna see
how well you can shoot. They wanna see your concepts. The most important thing
is getting those images in front of the people and
starting that conversation. (soft jazzy music).
