this is the beautiful jess blain again with her crazy colourful tights & night owl eyes. we shot this on the rooftop parking somewhere in the city.
model: jessica b
makeup artist: jesika t
Every week I will get a few emails in my inbox asking similar questions. I believe in replying to every single one of the emails that I get, even if sometimes it means sitting in front of a computer all day.
Some of the emails I receive (which will soon turn into blog posts) are people asking me how to keep motivated as a photographer and how to always have inspiration to take photos, what equipment and settings I use to shoot particular things, how to get a large team together to shoot, where to find clients from, and the list goes on and on!
Today however, I want to answer how to create your portfolio.
First I'll start with what a portfolio is, why you need a portfolio and what you will use it for.
A portfolio is a collection of your creative work to showcase your skills, either in print or online. For the sake of this blog post though, I will just be talking about online portfolios, specifically photography portfolios. You want your portfolio to contain only your best images. Even if you only present five or ten photos, a small amount of amazing photographs will always be stronger than thirty so-so ones. It is always important to not make rash decisions about what photos to put on your website, I feel it is a common misconception that making an online portfolio is something that happens overnight.
PICKING THE PHOTOS
Before you start deciding what photographs you want to display in your portfolio, you need to decide what sort of photographer are you. Who are you trying to market to by putting your work online? Who do you want to contact you when they go on your website? Are you a fashion photographer? Music photographer, wedding, landscape, portrait photographer? Once you are clear on how you want to portray yourself to the world, then you can start putting together a collection of images.
I would start off with creating a folder on your desktop titled "Portfolio Feb 2011", or whatever month and year it is. Then go through every single folder of your photos and copy and paste any HIGHRES and FINISHED pieces of work that have potential to go on your website. At this stage you don't need to worry too much about your final ten, this is so you can compare and cull down from a large amount of photos. Once you have your folder of images with absolutely anything you could image being part of your website, open up the folder in a program where you can easily see large versions of each image such as in Adobe Bridge or Lightroom.
It is here where the culling process beings.
I would start off by going through every picture one by one imagining you are a potential client, and trying to see how they would react and think about every individual photo. Delete any that you have any slight doubt about (make sure they are the copies you are deleting - not the originals!!). Once you get down to a smaller amount of pictures (I'd say about twenty), have a look at how they look like as a whole. Bring them all up on the screen and see if any look weaker when they are put up with the others, delete any that do. If there are two or three that look too similar to each other, put them up next to each other and get rid of the weaker ones as well.
By this point you should have a very strong ten or so images that are ready to go online and represent you. Remember during this whole culling process to keep in mind how you are trying to represent yourself as a photographer. If you are marketing yourself as a portrait or fashion photographer, there is no point in putting up landscape pictures from your latest trip to the beach as pretty as they may be. Be very strict with yourself, and keep in mind that even if there are some photos you love, if they don't fit in with what you are trying to show, you can always upload them to other websites such as flickr or your blog.
ONLINE PORTFOLIOS AND DOMAIN NAMES
There are plenty of free and paid websites that host portfolios. I find this the better option than to spend hundreds of dollars on a web designer. While you may have a very unique and different website if you go with a web designer, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how flashy your website is (in fact, the more flashy sometimes the more annoying), it is the photos that your clients are interested in.
When singing up with an online portfolio hosting website, make sure that you can use them with your own domain name. When I started looking online for a place to put my photographs, I went through plenty of websites before I finally found Viewbook. At first my domain name was www.jtrottiphotography.viewbook.com. After a while of writing down my website, putting it in emails, telling it to people, I realised that the name was too long, the .viewbook was too much of a nuisance to write and to explain in person and it wasn't very searchable in Google, since the majority of people would search for my full name "Julia Trotti" rather than "jtrotti".
It was by this point I decided it would be a good idea to buy my own domain name "www.juliatrotti.com". I put it off for a little while, but as soon as I started looking around for a place to buy it, I realised it wasn't half as hard as it looks. I eventually decided to go with www.godaddy.com to host my website name.
Once I bought www.juliatrotti.com Viewbook has a very simple function to be able to change the www.jtrottiphotography.viewbook.com to www.juliatrotti.com at literally the click of a button.
PUTTING YOUR PHOTOS ONLINE
Now its time to put your photos online. Do the photos you chose need to be in separate folders, or do they all fit under the same category? Upload them and go through them a couple of times, are they in the best possible order they can be? Play around with their sequences. I like to start of with a very strong image from a strong series, then put a a few really good photos, and another strong one in between.
It is important to play around with the layout of the overall website as well, the colour scheme, do you have a logo you can upload for the header of the page? Spend some time writing a bio for the about me section, clearly stating what you photograph and what you would like to photograph. One very very important part of your online portfolio is to make it easy to contact you, put your email address very clearly, or any other means you want people to contact you as well.
Personally, I have my email address first, then my phone number (include the area code so potential clients from overseas can call as well). Always be careful when putting your phone number online though, especially if you are still a young photographer.
KEEPING IT UPDATED
If you are a regular shooter, or ever if you're not, it is important to keep your website as up to date as possible. It is important that as you grow and improve as a photographer, your website reflects that. This isn't a matter of simply uploading a couple of photos from every new shoot you do. This can often actually lower the quality of your online portfolio because you are not paying attention to how these new images look compared to the photos already uploaded.
Depending how often you take photos, make it a once a month or once every two month thing to go through this entire process.
Instead of starting a completely new folder this time though, copy the old folder "Portfolio Jan 2011" and rename it "Portfolio Mar 2011", copying the new photos you want to display into it. Then go through the entire process again, and replace all the photos you have online with the new folder of images.
Sure, it is a very lengthy process to create a stunning online portfolio, but every minute of it is worth it. It is obvious to the client (whether they know it subconsciously or not) if the photographer has gone to an arm's length effort to put together an online portfolio that will successfully let the world know who they are and what they want to do. And in the end it is this effort that pays off, that allows your clients to find you and that helps you keep working!
Hopefully by the end of this blog post you have a very strong online portfolio! Or at least a good idea how to go about creating one. Soon to come is a blog post with reviews on portfolio hosting websites - my thoughts on them and what I think are their pros and cons. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts, I always love hearing what you guys think.
Some of the emails I receive (which will soon turn into blog posts) are people asking me how to keep motivated as a photographer and how to always have inspiration to take photos, what equipment and settings I use to shoot particular things, how to get a large team together to shoot, where to find clients from, and the list goes on and on!
Today however, I want to answer how to create your portfolio.
First I'll start with what a portfolio is, why you need a portfolio and what you will use it for.
A portfolio is a collection of your creative work to showcase your skills, either in print or online. For the sake of this blog post though, I will just be talking about online portfolios, specifically photography portfolios. You want your portfolio to contain only your best images. Even if you only present five or ten photos, a small amount of amazing photographs will always be stronger than thirty so-so ones. It is always important to not make rash decisions about what photos to put on your website, I feel it is a common misconception that making an online portfolio is something that happens overnight.
PICKING THE PHOTOS
Before you start deciding what photographs you want to display in your portfolio, you need to decide what sort of photographer are you. Who are you trying to market to by putting your work online? Who do you want to contact you when they go on your website? Are you a fashion photographer? Music photographer, wedding, landscape, portrait photographer? Once you are clear on how you want to portray yourself to the world, then you can start putting together a collection of images.
I would start off with creating a folder on your desktop titled "Portfolio Feb 2011", or whatever month and year it is. Then go through every single folder of your photos and copy and paste any HIGHRES and FINISHED pieces of work that have potential to go on your website. At this stage you don't need to worry too much about your final ten, this is so you can compare and cull down from a large amount of photos. Once you have your folder of images with absolutely anything you could image being part of your website, open up the folder in a program where you can easily see large versions of each image such as in Adobe Bridge or Lightroom.
It is here where the culling process beings.
I would start off by going through every picture one by one imagining you are a potential client, and trying to see how they would react and think about every individual photo. Delete any that you have any slight doubt about (make sure they are the copies you are deleting - not the originals!!). Once you get down to a smaller amount of pictures (I'd say about twenty), have a look at how they look like as a whole. Bring them all up on the screen and see if any look weaker when they are put up with the others, delete any that do. If there are two or three that look too similar to each other, put them up next to each other and get rid of the weaker ones as well.
By this point you should have a very strong ten or so images that are ready to go online and represent you. Remember during this whole culling process to keep in mind how you are trying to represent yourself as a photographer. If you are marketing yourself as a portrait or fashion photographer, there is no point in putting up landscape pictures from your latest trip to the beach as pretty as they may be. Be very strict with yourself, and keep in mind that even if there are some photos you love, if they don't fit in with what you are trying to show, you can always upload them to other websites such as flickr or your blog.
ONLINE PORTFOLIOS AND DOMAIN NAMES
There are plenty of free and paid websites that host portfolios. I find this the better option than to spend hundreds of dollars on a web designer. While you may have a very unique and different website if you go with a web designer, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how flashy your website is (in fact, the more flashy sometimes the more annoying), it is the photos that your clients are interested in.
When singing up with an online portfolio hosting website, make sure that you can use them with your own domain name. When I started looking online for a place to put my photographs, I went through plenty of websites before I finally found Viewbook. At first my domain name was www.jtrottiphotography.viewbook.com. After a while of writing down my website, putting it in emails, telling it to people, I realised that the name was too long, the .viewbook was too much of a nuisance to write and to explain in person and it wasn't very searchable in Google, since the majority of people would search for my full name "Julia Trotti" rather than "jtrotti".
It was by this point I decided it would be a good idea to buy my own domain name "www.juliatrotti.com". I put it off for a little while, but as soon as I started looking around for a place to buy it, I realised it wasn't half as hard as it looks. I eventually decided to go with www.godaddy.com to host my website name.
Once I bought www.juliatrotti.com Viewbook has a very simple function to be able to change the www.jtrottiphotography.viewbook.com to www.juliatrotti.com at literally the click of a button.
PUTTING YOUR PHOTOS ONLINE
Now its time to put your photos online. Do the photos you chose need to be in separate folders, or do they all fit under the same category? Upload them and go through them a couple of times, are they in the best possible order they can be? Play around with their sequences. I like to start of with a very strong image from a strong series, then put a a few really good photos, and another strong one in between.
It is important to play around with the layout of the overall website as well, the colour scheme, do you have a logo you can upload for the header of the page? Spend some time writing a bio for the about me section, clearly stating what you photograph and what you would like to photograph. One very very important part of your online portfolio is to make it easy to contact you, put your email address very clearly, or any other means you want people to contact you as well.
Personally, I have my email address first, then my phone number (include the area code so potential clients from overseas can call as well). Always be careful when putting your phone number online though, especially if you are still a young photographer.
KEEPING IT UPDATED
If you are a regular shooter, or ever if you're not, it is important to keep your website as up to date as possible. It is important that as you grow and improve as a photographer, your website reflects that. This isn't a matter of simply uploading a couple of photos from every new shoot you do. This can often actually lower the quality of your online portfolio because you are not paying attention to how these new images look compared to the photos already uploaded.
Depending how often you take photos, make it a once a month or once every two month thing to go through this entire process.
Instead of starting a completely new folder this time though, copy the old folder "Portfolio Jan 2011" and rename it "Portfolio Mar 2011", copying the new photos you want to display into it. Then go through the entire process again, and replace all the photos you have online with the new folder of images.
Sure, it is a very lengthy process to create a stunning online portfolio, but every minute of it is worth it. It is obvious to the client (whether they know it subconsciously or not) if the photographer has gone to an arm's length effort to put together an online portfolio that will successfully let the world know who they are and what they want to do. And in the end it is this effort that pays off, that allows your clients to find you and that helps you keep working!
Hopefully by the end of this blog post you have a very strong online portfolio! Or at least a good idea how to go about creating one. Soon to come is a blog post with reviews on portfolio hosting websites - my thoughts on them and what I think are their pros and cons. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts, I always love hearing what you guys think.
my camera's self timer remote finally arrived two days ago and i can take self portraits again. this was a quick one in my front yard, and a toy boat (try saying that ten time in a row). lots more pictures to come soon, hopefully some manipulations more so than anything! i miss making crazy things with photoshop. in this photo all i did was add the clouds and get rid of some powerlines.
and this is the lovely suzi rose with sam
last week i was documenting the happenings backstage at designer suzi rose's "audi FACE" fashion show. here are just some of the snaps.
check out her work: www.suzirose.com
models: michelle & rosie (just above)
clothing designer: mackenzie mode
headpiece designer: jessica beattie
hair/makeup: leana
last week i had a shoot for the wonderful mackenzie mode. i was so ecstatic to get to photograph for them because i think they're clothes and designs are completely amazing - they're just so quirky and fun. a team of eight of us met up friday morning at centennial park, and over the span of eight hours we managed to shoot both lookbook & editorial styled pictures of more than 50 outfits on three models. this blog post is just a tiny sneak peek on what's to come!
check out her website: http://www.mackenziemode.com.au/
she ships these beautiful dresses all over the world!
at the beginning of last year i was commissioned to create a series of three book covers for christopher pike and was completely ecstatic about it. i've blogged the photos of the book covers before but if you can't remember just search for "the last vampire by christopher pike" and the lovely connie will come up :)
after the three book covers, i was asked to create two more with a different character. i found the amazing lexi who i thought was perfect for it (and she was) and we created the above photo for the latest last vampire book. the picture above is my personally-retouched version, and below is the further edited photo for the actual cover according to their specifications. another book is still to come but i can't say what picture is on the cover yet!
it is really great when someone buys one of my photos from my portfolio to be the cover of a novel, but it is even more amazing and fun for me to be given an outline and to need to create an image or a series of images to be the cover of some really awesome books!
model: the lovely andrea
sitting on cliffedge, somedays we're all made of dreams in the sand.
i am working at the moment on another short film, starring my lovely and beautiful friend from work, katie. here is only a *tiny* sneak peek on what's to come. i can't wait to start putting this short film together! its going to be amazing.
i was reminded of this shoot when i received an email the other day if i could send some highres images so they could possibly be printed as part of the au review's 2010 yearbook of live music photography. i had this strange feeling that i never actually blogged these photos, so i went through my blog archive and aha! i was right.
now, there was actually a reason as to why i never blogged these photos. whenever i go out to shoot a band, i never really think twice about "what if i don't get any photos" i simply put all my camera gear into my bag, head out, arrive at the venue, have a quick look at the stage i'll be shooting and just wait for the support bands to start. well, this midnight juggernauts gig was one of those shows that whacks you in face and reminds you that you need to be on your feet at all times with photography.
at the time i didn't have my 85mm f1.2 (which is amazing to shoot live gigs, and is so so great in low light). all i had was my 50mm f1.4 which at the time i though was a pretty good lens, and my 24-70mm f2.8. when i had a quick look at the stage before any bands got on i thought the 50mm wouldn't be such a great lens to shoot with since the stage was quite big, all the photos would look a little bit far away. i decided on my zoom.
the first support band got on and he was great to watch, listen to and shoot. the second support band, dappled cities (who i really really love) got on and they were also fine. at this point, the photographer's pit was also very sparse, there was only me and a couple of other shooters, and we got the usual three songs to shoot and we're out, which was fine.
as we're waiting at the side of the pit for midnight juggernauts to get on stage, more and more photographers turn up. i think there was at least about ten of us, which i thought was a little bit ridiculous, usually there's only about six. anyway, midnight juggernauts get on, the stage is pitch black for the entire first song they play. there was barely any room to move around to get a good shot and we only had two songs left to shoot. the next two songs were a little more bareable, there was a small amount of light, it didn't change much so you couldn't get a variety of photos, but hey, at least the stage wasn't pitch black anymore!
there was nothing i could do, i had to crank up my iso to be able to get a properly exposed image and just forget about the grain. you had to make the little amount of light be as interesting as possible in your photos and not care if you get in the way of any other photographers as you're all trying to get the same shot in the small amount of time we had left. and because of my lens, i could only get my aperture down to 2.8 - see how hand my 85 would have been at this point!
regardless of all this, i managed to get some good photos, which at the end of the day, you need to do no matter the conditions. i managed to meet a lovely photographer by the name of ian whom i've told you guys about before and got into the mosh pit afterwards with my cousin to enjoy the rest of the show - which was awesome!
some more live photos to come soon :)
couple in a bookshop in newtown yesterday afternoon.
my holidays are almost over and i have lots of things i need to do. i wrote a massive to-do list in my journal this morning and have slowly been crossing things off as the day goes on. if anyone knows me just a little bit, you would know that i am a massive failed attempt at cooking. well today dan helped me cook french toast over the phone (i really am a little bit pathetic when it comes to an over or stove) and managed to make myself some lunch! im was getting a little sick of just eating noodles all the time, so i thought it was time to step out of my comfort zone and try something different.
i did that a couple of weeks ago as well when i made chicken stir fry which was so so yummy. i think i need to cook more, because as i've proved a small amount of times, i can actually do it!
anyway, i think that's enough of my procrastinating for now. for the rest of today, i'll be retouching some promo band photos, some more wedding photos for a client, and hopefully i will have a wedding blog post up soon, i have some live photos to edit and post up to a bunch of places and a film to start working on! im working on a blog post on how shooting a wedding works, because its something that i'd like to share with you all. is there anything that you guys would be particularly interested in me writing about?
i did that a couple of weeks ago as well when i made chicken stir fry which was so so yummy. i think i need to cook more, because as i've proved a small amount of times, i can actually do it!
anyway, i think that's enough of my procrastinating for now. for the rest of today, i'll be retouching some promo band photos, some more wedding photos for a client, and hopefully i will have a wedding blog post up soon, i have some live photos to edit and post up to a bunch of places and a film to start working on! im working on a blog post on how shooting a wedding works, because its something that i'd like to share with you all. is there anything that you guys would be particularly interested in me writing about?
i woke up this morning and it is christmas eve and i really felt like creating something. this photo is from
the long weekend a month ago i spent at my dad's house. one afternoon at sunset, we went driving
through the windy country roads, where there were cows walking next to the car, fields that went on
forever, broken trees and lonely homes.
this is the original picture, i cropped it to a square then used a layer mask to completely get rid of the sky
and some of the mountain.
i added a picture of a more interesting sky from a completely different day, but it wasn't working so well.
i tried a few more til i ended up with this:
added more contast to the image with curves in photoshop, as well as editing the colours. i really wish
you could edit photoshop files in camera raw, but it doesn't let you.
i then decided to add a tree at the end of the road so there is a main focus to the image. before the tree i
added a little house, but it was too boring and didn't flow with the immense amount of green in the rest
of the picture, so i got rid of it.
these are the original images i used:
hope you like! i have a few more field picture that im planning ideas for. hopefully i will have a series
of square images soon. for now though, i need to stop procrastinating and get back to sending
proofsheets and retouching!
im listening to the almost famous & the boat that rocked soundtracks and they are amazing.
models: alexi le trash & joji watanbe
makeup artist: judith joan
check out the editoral i did for thirst for vision magazine: http://issuu.com/thirstforvision/docs/issue_4
they gave me the theme "wild" and this is what i created!
one night i went to watch and photograph midnight horizon at their rehearsal studio. you can find links to
their music here: www.midnighthorizonmusic.com
im hoping we'll be working on a video clip soon to one of their awesome new songs *hint hint* :) also
on their blog are more photos dan & matt took on film that i don't think i posted here.
last friday night i shot thirsty merc at the metro. it was the first time i got an actual physical photographer's
pass woot! there were two support bands, lucy hall, who sounded a lot like florence and the machine
with a pretty voice and ukulele and the white bats, who are in the first five photos of this post. he rest of
the pictures are of thirsty merc! the photographer's pit for this show was amazingly spacious, there were
only about five of us taking pictures;
two of whom sat down, so there were really only three of us running back and forth. so, five people
compared to the about ten at the last show i shot, which was midnight juggernauts, really makes me happy haha.
this is the first of about a million and one blog posts to come this week!
i got some 35mm film developed and every time i look at the pictures it makes me so so happy. i don't
know, there is just something about film that can never ever be recreated with digital.
some more posts to come soon! this is from one of the midnight horizon rehearsals in the studio, a few
months ago now i think. dan scanned them in for me :)