Portfolio Selection & Processing

[ShaneS]

I am taking a photography class at our local university via their continuing education program and one of the requirements is to put together a portfolio of images based on a theme. I have put together a series of images based on trip (let's call that a timeline) but never from an 'artistic' perspective where the images need to flow from one to another.

I have selected the images and put them in an initial order that I think flows but while I specified in my portfolio statement that they would all be in black & white I am wondering about consistency in processing. Some questions for those of you that have done this before...

Should all images have the same aspect ratio?
Should all images have similarities in contrast and toning?

Any other tips (or examples via link) on this subject would be most welcome as I function really well when there are rules (I'm a financial analyst) or at least some sort of guidelines but self doubt creeps in with subjective stuff like this

For those of you that are interested by portfolio statement was:

Natural Space

By emphasizing empty (negative) space and eliminating color, these images of natural subjects will explore the spaces “in between” and encourage an awareness that these spaces are in fact, not empty, but an integral part of the whole.

I think that I have veered a bit from this statement but am pretty happy with what I have come up with so far in terms of images and now I have to do my final processing and possible fill in some blanks with new images before I present them on December 19th.

[Adrian]

Just an idea for you. The objective for you must be, in part , for your photos to tell a story. THey need to do that for whoever is looking at your portfolio. To see whether they actually do this, try compiling them into a book (you don't need to order the actual book!).

For example, Lightroom 5 (and 4 I think) has Blurb built in. This will enable you to turn your photos into a book instantly if you select the automatic features. You can also choose various sizes and things like automatic zooming to fit the page size. You can make photos on any pages in any size or format you want. The whole process is very rapid and intuitive. Background colours (relevant to your space theme) can be anything you want, including plain tones or graphics.

You can then view the book on screen and see if it is working as a presentation.

THere are numerous systems like Blurb available as free downloads. Apple do them too (having tried a few I like the Blurb integration with Lightroom). You can add text to pages or photos easily.

Both Aperture and Lightroom also have slideshows: will not give the same effect as book page styling, but will show if the story is coming across.

I woud not worry about having all photos the same size or format, but seeing them on book pages (on screen) will soon tell you if it works or not.

Good luck, Adrian

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with Adrian that it's important to establish an order that flows naturally but I think that can be confirmed using either book software or slideshow software.

You didn't mention whether your presentation will be made electronically, using loose prints such as displayed on a table, or bound prints such as displayed in a physical portfolio. I think that information will be helpful to everyone making suggestions to you.

I have considerable experience making slideshow presentations and none making presentations of loose or bound prints, so take that into consideration when considering the use of like or dissimilar sizes. When making a slideshow presentation, I present all images at the native resolution of the device being used, whether that's a television, computer monitor or projector. As an example, if the native resolution is 1280 x 800, the width of my horizontally oriented photos will be 1280 and the height of my vertically oriented photos will by 800. I let the other dimension fall where it may, which of course implies that it's not necessary for me that every image has the same aspect ratio.

As for the order of images, I take into account the following characteristics: subject content, toning, color vs black-and-white (not relevant in your specific situation), horizontal vs. vertical orientation, aspect ratio, and overall style such as high-key, low-key or neither.

My highest priority is to ensure that the subject content is displayed in a reasonable order. My second priority is the order of horizontally and vertically oriented photos. I try to never display fewer than three consecutive photos of the same orientation to avoid flipping back and forth between orientations.

As for the other characteristics, sometimes attending to a particular characteristic is more important than attending to another characteristic and that varies from situation to situation. Sometimes I want a particular characteristic such as toning to be displayed perhaps in an alternating order and sometimes not. Whatever I decide about that, I ensure that my decision is maintained consistently throughout the presentation.

So, I start placing the images in order and I make adjustments until the flow "feels" natural. I then display them as Adrian suggests using book or slideshow software (I always use the latter) as a final check to make sure that everything seems to work.

I do think it's important to be open-minded to the possibility that a particular photo that is worthy of being shown on its own needs to be excluded from a particular presentation simply because it is not a good fit with the other photos in the presentation. I recommend not "forcing" an image into your presentation if, in reality, there is no good fit. I often find it difficult to accept that reality, but it is a reality.

Hope this helps! This is a terrific subject that you have chosen for a thread and I look forward to seeing everyone's ideas. I'm sure they will give me food for thought with regard to my own presentations in slideshows and books.

[chauncey]

Thank you Shane for a great question...I'm gonna go to school on this one. Will be using the info for photo-sharing website planning.

[Andrew1]

For some professional insight into portfolios take a look at the applicable blogs of Zack Arias and episodes of The Grid. People have submitted their work to these guys for some honest feedback and received it.

[LocalHero1953]

Have a look also at the website of the Royal Photographic Society. The qualifications they offer are based on assessments of portfolios, presented either as printed images in a defined layout or as sequences of digital images on screen. The website has links to examples of successful panels (as they call them) which are good for ideas.

[chauncey]

Aah...how about links guys.

[kdoc856]

My thanks to Shane for originating and all the others who have contributed to this excellent subject. I'm purely the student here and am soaking this all in as best I can. Great thread.

[ShaneS]

I'm glad to see that there is some interest in this thread. My presentation will be via digital projection and the instructor simply loads the high quality JPEGS (provided on a thumb drive) into Bridge and goes through the images one by one, asks for class feedback and then analyzes sequencing, etc. I am using Bridge to sort and analyze the flow of images. Ultimately I will likely present the images on my website.

This portfolio is small (under 20 images) as the course met monthly for the last three months and the goal was to create 10-12 new images for each class (which really amounts to only 24 as the first class we just brought in some images to show where we were at as a photographer and then were instructed to decide upon a portfolio theme, the next two were presenting new images, and the final was to be the presentation of what the instruct said might be thought of as a chapter in a book)

Thank you Adrian and Mike for your thoughtful replies. Mike said:

I do think it's important to be open-minded to the possibility that a particular photo that is worthy of being shown on its own needs to be excluded from a particular presentation simply because it is not a good fit with the other photos in the presentation. I recommend not "forcing" an image into your presentation if, in reality, there is no good fit. I often find it difficult to accept that reality, but it is a reality.

This is the process that I used:

1 - I went through all of the images that I wanted to consider for the portfolio utilizing Bridgr. I then copied them into a new folder.
2 - Next, I went through the limited selection and starred the ones that I thought would work.
3 - Then I started moving the starred images around to create a flow that worked.
4 - Then I removed the star (much as it pained me) from some of the images that didn't work for one reason or another.
5 - Starred new ones, removed stars, changed the order, etc. (At this point I prefaced the name of each file with its order number so it wouldn't get inadvertently lost when I closed the program - a little bit paranoid here but better safe than sorry)
6 - At that point I went to bed! I was just repeating myself and still not 100% sure.
7 - Reviewed the images again this morning and confirmed that I had to create a couple of new images to fill some holes.
8 - I will be tweaking this for a couple of weeks I so I decided to work on the processing of the keepers when I am not out trying to find the elusive 2+ images to perfect the flow of images.
9 - I did decide to try and present a reasonable amount on continuity in the processing allowing for variations based on individual images and I will let you know how that goes...

Others were interested in links, so I did some searching based on the comments in that regard. Here are a couple:

Here is a fairly detailed post from Zak Arias on Editing Your Portfolio

And some portfolios from The Royal Photographic Society. While some of the portfolios are interesting they seem to be more about presenting examples of your best work rather than on a story telling format.

Feel free to add additional thoughts, questions and links to this thread

[ShaneS]

Got through the processing of my first four images...it took most of the day and my brain and eyes are tired! Here is a quick screen shot of the progress so far:



I didn't include the fourth image in the screen shot as it is really the 5th and dramatically illustrates the fact the I need one more transitional image to make the flow of images work.

Any thoughts on the image order so far? While you think about it, I'm heading off to meet some friends for what I hope will be a tasty Himalayan dinner

[Mike Buckley]

For me, it's too difficult using such small images displayed among the details of your screenshot to have an opinion about your image order.

[ShaneS]

Sorry for the late reply Mike! I should have been clearer in my intentions with the screen shot. Rather an analysis of the images I was attempting to show the flow in terms of shape and form from one to the other. I guess that is also a bit difficult to do at the small size of the screen shot.

I am up to eight processed images now although I have my doubts that a couple will stay in the portfolio as I haven't captured the transitional images that might allow them to stay yet. Just my luck too, the weather forecaster is calling for heavy vog (volcanic fog which is essentially air pollution) and showers this weekend so shooting for this project may be hit and miss at best

Thank you for your continued interest in this thread

I will definitely post the portfolio for comment when it is more refined.

[Mike Buckley]

Rather an analysis of the images I was attempting to show the flow in terms of shape and form from one to the other. I guess that is also a bit difficult to do at the small size of the screen shot.

Indeed.