I usually spend parts of January updating my portfolios and website so I figured let’s dive deeper into this big subject! The frontpage of my site has a small live music portfolio, that is what my frontpage first and foremost is about - showing my work for bands, so more artists want to book me! This front page is by far the most important portfolio and I update this quite often, just to have it ‘fresh’ and have some new content. Also, there are probably older pictures that should be in here but I get tired of looking at them over time, so I swap them out often.
I have a larger live music portfolio (far too large right now, needs culling!) that go further back, and some hidden portfolios I use for direct emailing. It’s a bit of work to keep these updated, but I really believe it is important, especially looking back at your work with a critical eye and curating a selection of your best work. Ok, some random portfolio thoughts in no particular order:
“Uh please tell me you made a video on how to make a portfolio” - said no one ever 😆 5 years ago during the first lockdown, Fujifilm hired some of their ambassadors including me to make some videos of things people could do at home with their photos or cameras. I wanted ‘build a Tardis’ but ended up with ‘make a portfolio'. It was I think only my 2nd self-solo-filmed video, I just rewatched it and holy crap it is rough! And I use various versions of the word ‘feel’ 100 times. But fortunately it is tight, only 4 minutes, and I think the actual script is still quite valid, so maybe give it a quick watch or listen, perhaps better to just listen!
Why do I need a portfolio? If you are looking to get hired as a working photographer in the actual real world it is essential, at least if you are planning to pitch yourself to potentiel clients. Your SoMe is not enough, it’s not a portfolio. Yes sometimes it might work, but make a proper portfolio please! I hire people for photo teams on large gigs and festivals from time to time, and I need a curated portfolio of live music, one link I can pass on to managers, bands etc. And the same when I send out pitches to clients, I send out a link to a portfolio tailored to whatever I am pitching, live music, commercial events etc. Assume that managers, editors, publishers etc will take a quick glance for a minute or less and if your portfolio is not on a clean quick one page site people can scroll down, you are probably not making that first cut.
Get a website. This is not a question, get a website if you want to be hired for photography jobs. Again, your SoMe feeds are not a portfolio or at least cannot stand alone. Squarespace, Wordpress, Format, there are many options, just make a quick portfolio site: frontpage with portfolio, about and contact (don’t forget that!) pages.
One or more portfolios? Have a main portfolio (or a smaller subset of it) on your frontpage, a small selection to wow the casual viewer who never makes it into the menu and further into your site. If you want to showcase (and get hired for) several ‘genres’ I feel it is a great idea to divide it into several portfolios. I would much rather see separate portfolios for live music, portraits, landscape than mash it all together. Most importantly, by separating them you get specific tailored portfolios with direct links you can send to clients. This is another huge bonus of having your own site, you can’t curate and split your SoMe feed into different portfolios. You can also make ‘hidden’ portfolios that are not linked in your menu, I have one on commercial events that I don’t want public on my site but I have the portfolio if I need it for potential clients.
Show what you want to be hired/known for! I am pretty sure my buddy Dan Milnor from Shifter told me a version of this 10-11 years ago in L.A. and it stuck with me. I remember the frontpage of my site had a slideshow of everything and the kitchen sink. It needed direction. So first, if you primarily want to get hired for say live music, then show that first! Rest can go on subpages. Later when you have a large selection of live music portfolio pictures, you can start to tailor it to your specific ‘audience’. I have a lot of pictures of DJs and electronic events from the 2010s, a lot of these pictures I absolutely love, but I don’t do that type of work anymore so I took them all out of my portfolio. You can’t book me for those type of gigs any more so I don’t need to show it. I focus on a portfolio where I want artists/bands to hopefully go wow and book me! This is also why I recommend not mixing your different portfolios together, I don’t care if you are great at landscapes if you are pitching for a live music gig.
…and finally….print a portfolio! Make a small printed portfolio you can carry around and show people! This works better than anything, trust me, and because people are generally not used to seeing photos in print anymore, it has a huge impact. Heck, make 20 copies and give them away, this is really the best business card you can make. Small, inexpensive, use a print on demand service like Blurb or whatever you prefer. If you are interested, yonks ago in lockdown I made a video on bookmaking.
Questions or comments? I think that was a bit all over the place so do feel free to shoot me any questions or comments down below!
January is always a bit slow on the gig front as a lot of venues are closed for some weeks (hence the time to update the portfolio/website!). But I still had a nice handful of lovely gigs, most of them out at the concert hall DR Koncerthuset, and I absolutely love working at that world class venue feat. world class musicians. They have fast become some of my favourite gigs. I also get to hear a lot of fantastic music I would normally not be exposed too, a great musical education. And genres I never understood such as opera suddenly make sense live. I love all the gigs, especially the big symphony orchestra concerts, they can be absolute magic, proper goose bump material. A few pics from January:
January has also been insanely cold and windy. I do not like Winter. But considering just how insane, horrific and devastating January has been in many other parts of the world, we are lucky here to just be battling a cold streak.
Thank you for reading, feel free to share this with anyone, and comment or send me suggestions and questions.
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