Let me know what you think

[Jsargent]

I do not claim to be a professional, ive been taking photos for 3 years now, i took one class in photography but most has been self taught or picked up by my main college focus of video production.

while i think i have been doing good my opinion is a bit skewed.

all i ask is give me an honest opinion, am i a Fauxtog?

 

http://www.jsargentphotography.com

 

[Nightrose]

I see you have a Zenfolio account (as do I!). Might I suggest that you create a number of drop-down pages within your portfolio in order to place groups of photos into different categories, rather than having a mish-mash of everything  in one page. For example: studio portraits, location portraits, flowers and landscapes (for the ones that aren’t of people ).   I’m currently trying to organise my own website as I do a range of studio portraits, and grouping those together is proving to be a real challenge!

Also, I doubt people will buy prints if you have your watermark on the pics – unless you have watermarked your portfolio and have a separate page for unmarked photos to purchase as prints.

I’m not going to call you a fauxtog but some of the photos do look a little blurry to me….curious to know if it is my eyes or if others see this too? Particularly the one of the little girl!

Your portfolio reminds me of mine when I was just starting out – a random collection of too many different subjects, often with amateurish angles (like the flowers). Your strongest photos overall are the studio shots, and I’d go so far as to suggest you dump everything else off (or at least do as I suggested earlier and create multiple galleries)  and just concentrate on building a great portfolio based around this. I know it is a huge temptation to want to post up everything you do, but it doesn’t do any favours in the long run, as a niched photographer will almost always be more successful than a jack-of-all-trades.

 

[IHF]

“I do not claim to be a professional”

you offer and charge for a professional service and charge for finished products.  You do indeed claim to be a professional.  Not only that but you also undercharge, which is a huge problem within the industry.  I have to ask… When you say in no way eYou claim to be a professional, is this because you don’t pay taxes, you’re not insured or licensed, and just work under the table?  Or…

with that said, I agree with nightrose on most points.  Your studio is the strongest, and things kind of seem to be put together haphazardly.  Another thing that bothered me is I only found one landscape and a couple city scape pics in your landscape port, and the landscape was shot in portrait orientation….hummmmmm…

right now with the info and images provided, you ARE a fauxtog

[cameraclicker]

How do you not claim to be a professional?  Your About page says:

My goal is to capture the REAL you, nothing more, nothing less.

The biggest part of business is not how much money you make or how many people you have shot, it’s how your customers feel after doing business with you, I am committed to costumer service from start to finish.

I offer all forms of photography, from landscape to portraits, to weddings and special events.

Sitting fee is $50 and covers,
-The setup and breakdown of all equipment.
-The shoot its self.
-All post production work
-CD or flash drive of pictures for private and public use.
-One free 8×10 print of your choice.
-Digital contact sheet to order prints.

While most businesses like their employees to be committed to customer service, I see you are “committed to costumer service”!  And, apparently not committed to proof reading.

Since you are offering photos for money, you are a fauxtographer.  Under landscapes, I found whales, a bird, a cat, a couple of flowers, lots of cityscapes…  I’m willing to call a cityscape a landscape, but the engineer in me thinks buildings that lean should be condemned before they fall down and you seem to have whole cities of buildings that lean.

Several of the girls in your portraits seem to have blemishes.  That suggests a disturbing lack of attention to detail in post.  I have a sister-in-law who does not want her photos retouched, so I appreciate not everyone wants it, but I would still retouch for a portfolio photo even if I did not retouch a print I gave to her.

 

[IHF]

Some links that you might find helpful to improve your studio photography

6 Portrait Lighting Patterns Every Photographer Should Know

The Basics of a One Light Setup: A Lighting Tutorial

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

What Everybody Ought to Know About Posing for Portraits

In your shoes I would hold off on being pro until I was getting reliably consistent shots on a regular basis.  Go ahead and allow yourself to be a student for awhile, there’s no rush and you won’t regret it.  Slow down, you still have a lotto learn, and I’d hate to see you waste that potential.

[Loke]

above suggestions are great and correct….you’ll want to study more on properly pricing yourself and work on editing your photos (especially with portraits)..Zenfolio/MPIX charges a crap load for their prints so you want to make somewhat of a profit right price above at least 2% 🙂 ? ….and as a designer I’d like to add a couple of more : 1. get rid of the music or give your viewers an option to turn it off, it’s one of those things that turn off viewers (besides flash based websites)………..2. Your design is “minimalist” nice and simple….so keep that up….3..like nightrose said,  categorize your photos. ..something like this:

Home

About > Your Bio

Portfolio> Landscapes, People, Flowers, Video, etc.

Contact

Client Access

 

I used to have Zenfolio and the watermark shouldn’t be there when the clients order so that’s fine….but instead of a watermark might I suggest on the lower right placing your website address instead? This way they can remember who you are…

Finally, don’t feel like you have to include every recent shoot you do…try to step outside yourself and don’t put a picture up because you feel emotionally attached to it or because it’s your most recent one…put what you feel is your best work…as the others have pointed out….there is some inconsistency in the photo quality…I like your landscapes better and some of your portraits in studio with the lighter backgrounds….however, some of the family shots kind of have that “snapshot” look…which is fine if you have a separate blog ad you’re doing “behind the scenes” work….

[Author]

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