Creating Your Photography Portfolio
February 20, 2009 by Melanie
Filed under Photography
Photo Portfolio Success by John Kaplan
Your photo portfolio can be worth millions of dollars of business to you over the life time of your photography business career. Yet many photographers don’t have the slighest idea of how to create a portfolio, let alone what to put in it, or how to present it.
In this article, I review what I consider to be THE DEFINITIVE book on creating a photo portfolio.
“Pulitzer Prize-winner John Kaplan has won many of the top honors in photography and so have those he has coached on portfolio presentation. Kaplan, an associate professor at the University of Florida, has been named the POY National Photographer of the Year and received the Oveseas Press Club and Robert F. Kennedy Awards. He teaches workshops and reviews portfolios throughout the world. The portfolios of Kaplan’s former students have also reached the top, including winning the Pulitzer and College Photographer of the Year.”
For those of us who can’t afford to hire John Kaplan to advise us on building a portfolio … we are in luck! Kaplan’s book Photo Portfolio Success is the next best thing.
I have to state immediately that I think this book ROCKS. I’ve seen several books on building photo portfolios and this one is the very best. It is not only filled with stunning photographs, but it is filled with great information, advice and examples.
Kaplan covers all the different types of portfolios form print to online, CD, multimedia and slide. He talks about what works and what doesn’t. Kaplan also covers all the major photo business lines from wedding and portrait photography to photojournalism, nature, fine art and more.
Added to Kaplan’s advice are quotes from some of the world’s top photographers, editors and agents.
His business resources section alone makes the book a MUST BUY. Kaplan lists suppliers such as “wedding albums” along with frame supplies, workshops and other valuable photo resources.
I give this book a 10 out of 10! If you can choose to get only one book on portfolios and building your business … this is the ONE.
Get Photo Portfolio Success NOW and you will see your sales skyrocket!
Melanie
Putting together a portfolio is the most important part of success in the photography business. I order to have a good portfolio, you must choose photos that best represent your unique style as a photographer. It is a bad idea to just jumble all of your photos into a binder and call it quits. You need to find, not your favorite photos, but photos that show a potential client that you have a unique ability behind the lens. Look for photos that have nice composition, lighting, character, and, of course, your own personal touch. And remember, you do not need to put all of the photographs that you have ever taken in your portfolio. A nice number range is between 20 – 30 photos. Also, categories of photos that compliment each other, have the same theme, or same subject are visually pleasing to the viewer and it brings more focus on the style of the picture as well. Your portfolio is the very first impression that you give a potential client, so make it pop!
Thanks for the great input Demi. Having a theme and showing your potential client how you are capable of developing it can definitely be one of the keys to getting a job!
I am going to be graduating from a community college soon and transferring to a university and the transfer application requires a portfolio. To be honest, I didnt think it was going to be that hard…until I actually started putting it together. I am definitley going to check out this book and I hope it helps me.
Casey, this is one of the BEST books I’ve seen on building a visual portfolio. It is not only beautiful to look at, but is filled with great information on what to consider and how to build different kinds of portfolios for different purposes.
This helped me so much. I have been wondering for a while how to create a portfolio because the college I’m interested is is requiring one for scholarship eligibility. Thank you.
I look forward to getting this book as I will be putting together my portfolio in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the great information.