I often return to the eternal question of “How many images should a portfolio on PP contain?” It seems to me that if there are too many then people won’t ever get past the first few, too few and they might not get a fair view of your work. What do you do in terms of numbers? What about order? Last shoot first or group all images of a particular model together?
I will be interested in what other togs (and models) do and why.
Thanks
I was a free user for quite some time so limited to 15 images.
I took out a full subscription during Covid I believe, and even now I still loosely keep my portfolio to a minimum.
I don’t do enough photography to ram it with image after image so I will continue to rotate my page with historical shoot images and the occasional new shoot sets.
I gave up trying to choose favorites. If people look at my work, great—if not, that’s fine too! The most important thing to me is that I’m proud of what I create and enjoy the process of making it. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
Camelot Photography you're right that people - especially users on mobiles, and that will be more typically models than photographers - won't scroll past the first dozen pictures.
That's why I put some recent and some favourite pictures in the main portfolio and the remainder in albums.
True, many people won't look in albums either, but they're useful for me as a source of pictures for mood boards when proposing shoots.
I’ve just had a massive cull killing all my model based albums and replacing them with thematic ones with much fewer images in them.
I’ll try to stay on top of it but as Andy00 says if people like what you do does it matter how much work is on display?
mskeetphoto said
I’ve just had a massive cull killing all my model based albums and replacing them with thematic ones with much fewer images in them.
I’ll try to stay on top of it but as Andy00 says if people like what you do does it matter how much work is on display?
In the great scheme of things, no it doesn’t but I just want new visitors to my page to look at more than one or two images (hopefully).
I just keep posting them.
It is more for my interest than anyone else's.
If I ask a model to shoot with me they can have a quick glance or not.
It is that way round that I work.
I approach a model. Not a model approach me.
I do this for me, so don't consider I need approval or permission to abuse the privilege of posting loads. I do go on a hide/reveal exercise every so often, and jumble them up occasionally.
I post what I fancy and when in no particular order. If I have had a recent shoot then I will put up some of those before editing and putting up older ones.
But I have no structure to my images on here. Although generally they are from my early days (bottom) to my recent images (top). If people have a problem with that then that is their problem as it works for me and helps me show my range.
To be honest, yeah the 5000 random images endless scroll thing folks do always makes me click away, it's overwhelming. It also means I don't get down to tagged images.
But I appreciate that it's not for me and often folks are posting for themselves and not who might land on their page lol.
Personally I like the keep the main port small with current faves, then every shoot is in a folder if people want to drill down, but they are in chronological order (though other than looking a refs, I'm not sure if that's obvious. I'd put it in the title, but there's models I've shot with multiple times).
I'd love to go through and some point and really have a proper cull of where I've got too many shots from one sets and add others to make each folder a good overview.
Reason being, one my pet peeves is seeing an amazing shot appear, but no indication it's years old with a model who doesn't shoot anymore.
My logic is that a visitor will be mainly photographers looking to work with someone, so they can just check out what I've shot with them quickly. My reasons are fairly selfish.
I.e. the more work the models I like get, the less likely they are to stop doing it when I want to book them again. Same reason I post to socials.
I think if I was model (stop laughing at the back) I'd probably do the same, but instead of shoots do styles in folders?
I do find (as a potential customer) Model's ones can be very chaotic in the same way, (although I can think of some that are brilliant), which I suppose given what the site is for. Isn't great marketing?
For me, culling images is a process that takes the below points into account. It isn’t just an arbitrary thing.
As an ex professional I learnt that first impressions count. And I also take pride in my photography. So I make the effort to follow the general consensus of the members (gleaned from threads like this over many years) and:
I know if I published just topless and nude, my profile visits would be much higher and my image likes would be far higher.
But I just keep this account to:
It works for me but we all take a very much ‘personalised’ approach so there will be as many processes as members in terms of how we cull our images.
JPea said
I just keep posting them.
It is more for my interest than anyone else's...
Same here.
I use my portfolio as a sort of personal photo album - pictures I like (for whatever reason) and/or bring back memories of a particular shoot. If they were only on my hard drives I'd probably forget about them.
If I were trying to 'sell' myself I'd obviously have to do a drastic cull. But I'm not.
Edited by Orson Carter
I’ve read all sorts of wisdom about keeping portfolios brief. And others who just keep adding. I’m pretty much in the latter camp
Orson Carter said
JPea said
I just keep posting them.
It is more for my interest than anyone else's...
Same here.I use my portfolio as a sort of personal photo album - pictures I like (for whatever reason) and/or bring back memories of a particular shoot. If they were only on my hard drives I'd probably forget about them.
If I were trying to 'sell' myself I'd obviously have to do a drastic cull. But I'm not.
Edited by Orson Carter
Exactly.
It's the shooting and the making (processing) this images that's the fun thing. The process.
Then I upload to PP and move on to the next.
Maybe half a dozen a year that are good enough to print big.
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On the rare occasions I am looking for a non-nude model, I put ten suitable shots at the top before I approach them.
Models use their mobiles, will probably make their mind up on the first ten images.