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Image curation, like much in our industry, sits at the intersection of art and science. There is much to be said for the logic that goes into deciding how images are categorized and sequenced. However, if the emotional glue and expressive threads are lost along the way, a photographer can find themself with a rather boring website — orderly and obvious, lacking the dynamic relationships between images that drive curiosity and visual interest. If you’re new to this process, or are perhaps putting together your online portfolio for the first time, the prospect of curating your work may feel a bit overwhelming. As a creative consultant who has been helping photographers at all levels of their careers edit their websites, I can tell you that you are certainly not alone. The struggle is quite real!
Here are a few key questions and concepts to keep in mind as you organize your work for this important visual statement: your website.
Before you begin, take an inventory of your work. Broadly speaking, what are your specialties as a photographer and what subjects do you shoot most often? If you are new to photography, it’s okay to start with one generalized portfolio to show off your very best work. But as you develop your portfolio, consider grouping your images by specialty or project to focus your presentation. Take stock of what you have, and think carefully about the audience you’re trying to reach.
Determining the audience for your website is a critical part of the process. In order to have edits that feel curated and directed towards your marketing goals, it will be important to understand who you hope to appeal to with your portfolio. For example, if there is a particular industry type that you’d like to target, it can be helpful to group images into categories that are relevant to that audience. If you’d like to target hospitality work, but you don’t yet have a lot of specific work shot in that industry, pull together galleries of relevant content built around what the hospitality industry cares about: food, interiors, lifestyle, travel, etc.
If you’re just getting started as a photographer and you don’t have a lot of portfolio images, it’s okay to just show everything all in one category as long as you can sequence them in a way that’s cohesive. Once you have more than 20 or 30 images, however, consider categories that are meaningful to the clients you’re going after. For example, rather than having a category called People, it would be more useful to separate by Fashion, Corporate, Industrial, etc. As your portfolio continues to develop, you may want to be even more specific, grouping by individual projects whenever possible. That way, clients have a better idea of what they can expect to see from you if they hire you for an assignment.
A crucial aspect of being discovered by the right types of clients is establishing clear areas of specialization, labeled and organized for easy navigation. This is what attracts clients to one photographer over another. They believe them to be experienced in a type of photography that they care about, and they appreciate the visual style and technical skills that are being showcased within that area of expertise. Even if this means you show less work overall, it often serves you better to only include your most polished and developed bodies of work on your website. To some extent, what is included will depend on your local photo market and whether you will benefit from being something of a generalist. This is often the case in smaller markets, or if you’re known as an expert or specialist in a few key areas. But either way, chances are there’s going to be a lot of photos that simply don’t make the cut. Once you have an idea of your categories, it will be time to start culling things down.
Brooklyn-based Jonathan Meter is a commercial photographer who works in the Still Life/Product, Food/Drink, and Beauty/Cosmetics specialties. He shared,
When looking at a photographer’s website, I judge the website by the worst picture, not the best picture.
Less is more, and make sure all of the work is up to your standard. As a Still Life photographer, for instance, you need to be accountable for every pixel in the frame.
What do you consider to be your strengths as a photographer? Your answer to that question should be conveyed throughout your website, for visitors to easily recognize. How would you define your style? Is this supported by the approach you’ve taken to your website’s design? Your branding should also support the aesthetic you are communicating.
Jonathan suggested,
Retouching older work to reflect your current aesthetic is time-consuming, but worth the effort. Keep the retouching look up-to-date with your current process, and consistent across the entire website.
After you have grouped your images by category, it will be important to further refine your selections and order the images in a way that feels cohesive. As you sequence your images, pay attention to color, content, and composition to make sure the edit feels balanced and dynamic. Keep in mind that the first five images or so in any given gallery will act as a thesis statement for the content that follows. Each gallery should start strong and confident with the images you are most proud of. When relevant, consider the variety between wide, medium, and detail shots to create a visually engaging edit that tells a story.
Don’t expect to get it right in your first attempt, especially if you are editing your own work. Allocate time to create an initial edit that you can set aside for a few days before revisiting. Since photographers often feel closely connected to their work, seeking outside feedback along the way can be valuable. If that’s not possible, stepping away for a while can help you return to your images with fresh eyes and perspective, for a more objective view of your images.
Though some photographers opt to make updates to their websites on their own, others prefer to work with an outside editor. Atlanta-based Patrick Heagney is a commercial and editorial photographer who works in the Corporate, Healthcare, Lifestyle, Portraiture, and Travel specialties. Patrick updates the photo selection on his website once a year with the help of an editor.
I gather all the best images I shot that year along with what’s currently on my website and have an editor do a big reshuffle. It helps keep my site looking fresh and lets me show off a polished presentation of my newest and best work.
I’m way too close to the images to do it myself. I get too precious about older images and have a hard time knowing when it’s time to clear them out to make room for newer work. I also have a hard time picking my favorites from the new work I’ve shot that year, it’s easy to narrow it down but making the final selections can be a bit paralyzing. It’s so much better to have a fresh set of eyes look at the work objectively, without any of the biases and attachments I have.
Though Patrick recommends working with an editor to update your photography website, if that’s not an option, here are his tips for updating your website on your own.
Break work into relevant categories, for example: portraits, lifestyle, corporate, sports, etc. Don’t just lump everything together.
Less is more. It’s likely that any potential client is going to spend like 30 seconds looking at your site, so make sure you only have your best work in there. It’s better to leave out a potentially good image than to include stuff that is not your absolute best work.
Don’t repeat images. I hate when I see images repeated on a website, it feels like you’re wasting my time as the viewer. Does one image work for multiple categories? Just pick the one it looks best in, don’t put it into every section it could possibly be included in.
Once you have your work organized into relevant categories and sequenced, ask yourself, is anything missing? As you pulled your work together and built galleries directed towards the audience you are hoping to reach, did you find yourself wishing you had more of any particular type of photography? If so, start brainstorming ways you might be able to fill these gaps through test shoots. You want your website to feel aspirational and reflected towards the work you hope to shoot in the future, so push yourself to not rely exclusively on work you already have. Producing a few carefully considered test shoots can often greatly expand the way your work is seen, and help to showcase what you are capable of.
A few final thoughts, as your portfolio grows and your style evolves, remember to prioritize keeping your website up-to-date and reflective of your strongest work. Each update to your website is an opportunity to tighten the focus of your work and refine what you’d like to communicate to potential clients. Try to prominently showcase images that reflect the work you’d like to make professionally, and that express what is unique to your visual style and overall aesthetic. A website can be a lot of work to maintain, but with care and consistent effort, the process will become easier. The more clarity you have about who you are trying to reach with your online presentation, the more routine the editing process will become. Try to make time to keep things fresh and curated, take stock of what you have and what might be missing, and keep at it!
See more tips from the experts @wonderful_at_work
Further Reading
Read more articles by Honore Brown
Case Studies: Web Edit
Guide: Web Edit
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