Portfolio Review (Gulp)

A R G E N T U M said

JonC  Chala Figue was kind of special - there's a uniqueness about her - I only shot with her twice before she ran away to Berlin or wherever she ended up. I have quite a range of lovely images from those two shoots. I remember her climbing a tree in Mayfair and we were then chased through the street by a security guard. I also remember eating fish and chips with her on Brighton beach. She was going to travel down to my area for a third shoot but her car broke down, or failed its mot or something, and the shoot never happened. Anyway, that's enough reminiscing by me :)

Chala is indeed unique and brilliant. Only shot with here once (so far!) but loved it. Now she is back in Uk definitely going to be more!

It works.

You might look at this line

"I will typically provide a long list of low-res images in a drop box to chose from "

Pedantically, I doubt you list the images and provide the list, I suspect you put a lot of or most of the images in as low-res.

Choose has one more o in it, please.

From a distance, you have more text than some, above more images than some, and then at least as many as most albums.  Can people using the most likely screens see those albums without too much scrolling?

You might consider whether some of the text is not really useful to the target audience, and precis it or relocate some of it as notes in an album.

Separately or together, you might consider putting a couple of images as rather larger thumbnails than PP makes, in the midst of that text.  If the albums stay way down the page, you might add a link to one or more of them.

MidgePhoto said

It works.

You might look at this line

"I will typically provide a long list of low-res images in a drop box to chose from "

Pedantically, I doubt you list the images and provide the list, I suspect you put a lot of or most of the images in as low-res.

Choose has one more o in it, please.

From a distance, you have more text than some, above more images than some, and then at least as many as most albums.  Can people using the most likely screens see those albums without too much scrolling?

You might consider whether some of the text is not really useful to the target audience, and precis it or relocate some of it as notes in an album.

Separately or together, you might consider putting a couple of images as rather larger thumbnails than PP makes, in the midst of that text.  If the albums stay way down the page, you might add a link to one or more of them.

Thank you for this. I have fixed the typos in that sentence, which hopeful should improve its clarity too (3 errors in one sentence - I must have been having a moment!).

I will definitely look at incorporating your other suggestions later this morning (including being more concise with the words, signposting one particular album, and some images interspersed with the text) - all good stuff.

The thing I constantly struggle with is cutting down the number of images on the main page - which I want/need to do to improve the overall quality ‘impact’ of the main page, but I struggle To identify those images which are not as good as the others objectively.

thank you again - appreciated.

There is a bit of redundancy that you could think about removing to tidy things up:

The big rosette pointing to your FPI's. You already have the little one near the cog. Do you need the big one (and the text)?

You have links to your Insta and website. But you also have some External Links. You can put them all in External Links.

Then for removing images think about why you have images on the site. If it is (as some people) a record of a lot you have done, then keep as many as you want. If it is to highlight your best work, then you may well want to cull.  This is what I do: for images on the main page if it is an FPI or has over 20% love/views after a few days it stays (but apart from the FPIs they may be removed later). If I particularly like it it stays. Otherwise it gets put in a 'holding' album which periodically gets ruthlessly chopped.

In my entirely personal (and may well be wrong) opinion: You have a lot of utterly wonderful images. You also have a fair number of perfectly good ones. And one or two ok ones. Pruning somewhat will highlight the best.

(And since your work is much better than mine, completely ignoring me may well not be an unreasonable thing to do!)

mike rowley said

In my entirely personal (and may well be wrong) opinion: You have a lot of utterly wonderful images. You also have a fair number of perfectly good ones. And one or two ok ones. Pruning somewhat will highlight the best.

Thanks Mike. Appreciate this. 

I really would value your opinion on which images are naff, or merely ok (either here or in a DM), as this is the thing I struggle with most - being objective enough and ruthless enough about my own work. 

Jon

Hi buddy, nice clean Sharp images in my opinion

Theperfectcapture said

Hi buddy, nice clean Sharp images in my opinion

Thank you Sir.

Many thanks for all your feedback - really helpful. Some of which I have implemented, some I am mulling over (like putting some images within the notes - I did try this, but couldn't get it to look right on all the different screen sizes from phone to tablet to full desktop screen- will have another go in a few days). I still have the problem of which images to cull (which I know I need to do), but think this is going to be a perennial problem......

...... of course the real trick to improving my portfolio is just to take better images - still working on that (and will keep working on that until my shutter finger stops functioning).

Jon

JonC said

Thank you in advance - be gentle (wish!)

 

Hello

With your cover image I think the middle shot and the one right standard out, but not a big fan of the one on the left. I would maybe pick something different, maybe something with some bright colours to show contrast between the mono image and the head shot. 

Great to see a profile with someone who uses headings in a bigger font to break up their bio! 

"I aspire for photography that tends toward a narrative style" - Maybe worth adding a link to a Pinterest board so you can showcase or share ideas that you have to attract like minded creatives?

"produce 3 to 4 high quality edits for every hour of shoot/look (which will take at least another hour of my time for every hour on set) within a week." - I guess these are images without a watermark or with? I only ask as you've clearly gone to a lot of effort to make your bio spot on but I would be curious of this question.

"You can see my front page images by clicking the rosette below" - I personally would remove this, unless you are obsessed with FPIs. The vast majority of creatives don't care and as mentioned there is a link to FPIs next to the profile clog. 

I would move your social media icons/links under where you sign off your name.

FRSA LRPS - Could you maybe put links to where your name is on these things. I guess its like a qualification. 

Portfolio

Oh one pet peeve, you don't group images by age and they are scattered. I'd much rather see images from the same set together so you can see growth in a portfolio from the older images. I don't think a lot of images is a bad thing as long as there is variety, obviously if they are all the same then its just tedious.

Everything else is spot on, really impressive. The vast majority of portfolio reviews I do at from photographers who have been on the site like 9 years and 9/10 they aren't even 25% as good as this so kudos.

Albums

One more thing, I would ditch albums dedicated to a single model, I don't like the trophy cabinet approach and would much rather see images by genre. 

All the best and have a nice weekend.

Thank you @vishpateluk for taking the time to do this. Will definitely take this on board to consider for my next iteration.