Submitting a Portfolio

The online photography portfolio review starts with you submitting an organized electronic portfolio of approximately twenty images. You’ll submit this to me either through a shared folder on Dropbox or SmugMug or similar method. If using Dropbox, provide jpegs with at least 2,000 pixels on the long edge.

When selecting the images for your portfolio try to keep the selection tight and organized around a theme or artistic vision. While some of your images may have gotten many likes and shares on social media, they might not be ideal for a portfolio review. Ideally, your portfolio won’t be a collection of your most popular but somewhat unorganized and unrelated shots, but will instead be organized into a concise grouping of related photos that you would present to a curator at an art gallery.

After you select your images take a few days off from the process and then look them over again. Try to remove the emotional attachment you feel towards the images and judge them on the merits of whether or not each image measures up to the others. It’s helpful to have a photographer friend look over the portfolio and give you feedback on your selections as well.

Prepare an Artist’s Statement, Bio and Goal Statement

After preparing your portfolio, prepare a brief Artist’s Statement about the collection. This need not be long or worded in the language of the art world. I want to know why this portfolio is important to you, why you put it together, your goal for putting it together, and what drove you to create these pieces.

Write a short bio about yourself as a photographer, your experience level and any photographic achievements. Think about if we were riding in an elevator and you wanted to tell me about yourself but you knew I was exiting the elevator in a few floors.

I’d also like to know what your goals are in photography, and what you want to get out of this portfolio review. Try to be specific in the latter, because it can focus the review and make it more helpful to you.

Offline Review

After all of the above is received, I’ll examine the portfolio and written statements. During this time, I’ll reflect upon your work at my own pace. After that reflection, I’ll come up with a short and general written overview of my thoughts, and I’ll come up with a couple of ideas for the direction I think you should travel to improve your work.

When finished, I’ll send my thoughts to you before the online review.

Online Review

During the online review, I’d like you to come prepared to ask questions. While we won’t use Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, it may inform the way we approach the online portion of the photography portfolio review. I’ll start with an overview of my thoughts and what I really liked about your photography and the portfolio. Then I’d like you to ask me questions about your work. I may at that point ask you questions about your work to gain more insight into the photos and your process or I may offer opinions and feedback depending on how helpful either could be.

The online review portion of the process lasts one hour. You will receive a recording of the the photography portfolio review after we’re finished. You’ll have seven days to download it.

Approximate Timeline

At least two weeks before the review: Submit your portfolio and written statements to me.

Five days before the review: I’ll provide my written feedback and ideas for improving your work.

What You Will Need

• Standard Zoom setup: A webcam of some variety, microphone and speakers.
• A way to get me the images.
• Portfolio.
• Desire to improve your work.