What's the hold up with my photography portfolio?

Posted April 7th, 2008 by Purazar
in

I've had quite a lot of people contact me asking where my photography portfolio was. I've been posting lots about my new gear, and new found websites, but no proof that I'm actually doing something.

So here's the response to all of you:

With school and work keeping me busy, I've barely had time to go through all my photo shoots and send the clients their proofs.

But to be completely honest, I have a portfolio, I have about 4 different proof of concepts ready to go… but I'm not happy with any of them. I'll start working on one idea, get about 50% through creating it, and when I wake up the next day, I'll find a ton of things wrong with it. Colour, style, layout… you name it.

So, it's not that I have writers block… I have a lot of ideas, but I just can’t seem to settle on one that I’m happy with. Maybe my problem is that I'm putting too much emphasis on the presentation, rather than the content, but then again, this is a photography portfolio, and I'd like to display my creativity with both.

I'm sure a lot of you have done the same thing for your blogs and websites… so please chime in with your advice on how settle on a design and like it the next day.

simple is perfect

On April 8th, 2008 Ian (not verified) said:

if the sole focus of your site is to showcase photography work then putting that into a fancy shell or crazy experience can take that focus away. meaning your photography isn't the thing being showcased. the way most sites for photographers go is simple flash sites based around a slide show, click to next picture, deal. these will have some sort of semi fancy, but not overly dramatic transition between pieces. some that come to mind are

http://www.ariil.com/

http://www.erikrefner.com/

http://www.peters-photography.de/

http://www.rustyralston.com/

http://www.troytcoburn.com/

sometimes though even flickr is just the way to go [ http://flickr.com/photos/wowzzaa/ ]

so ya. photography sites = super duper simple so that the photos have the loudest voice

I can sympathize with you :)

On April 10th, 2008 Philipp (not verified) said:
I can totally get what you're trying to say... Whenever I work hard on a project, I am very critical about my product. This self-criticism is very important to the quality of the product ONCE you are done with it. Sometimes I catch myself over-criticizing my work and my ideas, so I force myself to be content with it by working on details that bother me the most. You just need to realize that design today should always be dynamic and people are adoptive like they have never been before. SELF-CONFIDENCE. For example, my blog design hasn't changed a lot lately but from time to time there are things that irk me like crazy. My visitors have always grown fond with little changes and enhancements. For the portfolio part: Why don't you get yourself a simple design so your work (you call it content) is in the center. The design around pictures I think can be quite distracting, but I think it's great that you put enough emphasis on it and don't neglect the fact that eye candy is also important for the presentation. There are a lot of galleries out there. They are doing a great job, maybe you can consider a flickr.com plugin (are you into flickr?) because flickr can boost your popularity, since people do their research there more frequently. IF you want your work to be only presented on your site, then I recommend a www.zenphoto.org gallery that displays your work. The themes can be changed very easily and it gives you enough creativity to make it UNIQUE. That's what you striving for, isn't it? Somebody mentioned flash galleries? I also have a script for that: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_Image_Rotator (Maybe it's something you can use) So once you're done with the busy stuff in life, you can work on the things like a portfolio and its presentation. Just don't hold up with over-criticism that snatches time and is in contrast with your intention of efficient quality.

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