Reply To: Do I blow big chunks?

[Kris3000]

Your photos are nice but many of them are not portfolio pieces. http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-2s8PF/i-7zzWgS8 as an example. In this photo the subject looks nice but what about the background? At a wedding you should try to capture candid snapshots that tell a story, or just a great moment. And if you have to justify a photo to someone else it probably shouldn’t be in your portfolio. http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-2s8PF/i-Pb88D9b gotta pay attention to your leading lines. Crop in and rotate. Like all my art teachers have said about portfolio pieces, if you put something in that’s bad it either means you don’t care or don’t know. Your portfolio should include things that are 1) technically precise 2) aesthetically pleasing 3) contain a story without words. It doesn’t matter if you shoot with a Hasselblad or a cellphone, you need to make sure you have the composition down or else you have nothing. Axe the tilted photos, they don’t offer anything. Another thing my professors drilled into us going into portfolio review: “Looking for signs of intelligent life”. Look through your images and try to see what they were saying. Why is there a slant? Why did you make the choices you did? Are the answers immediately apparent? If you have to think about it then it probably means it isn’t a portfolio piece and axe it from there. Those axed photos might be great for a scrap book or people in the photos might love them, but in terms of you getting a great portfolio together those photos don’t belong.