Web Edit: A Tasty Update for Hudson Stuart

Hudson Stuart is a food/drink and conceptual photographer based just north of Lisbon, Portugal. He initially came to us a few months back looking for help in gaining new clients and taking his brand to the next level. After working with one of our Marketing Specialists on a customized Branding and Marketing Plan (BaM! plan) that outlined a series of steps for him to take in order to move forward, Hudson decided that a professional web edit would be the best way to revamp his online portfolio.

We started Hudson’s edit with a chat via Skype to discuss his current work, his projects, clients, dream clients, and his stock photography. After that, Hudson sent over about 600 images from projects, assignments, and self-assignments taken over the last four years. We sorted through all of this photography, picking and rating his strongest and most commercially viable images. Based on the content we’d selected, we then began grouping the work into distinct categories and sequencing them. During this process, it was important to pay careful attention to the angle of view, the props, the surfaces, and the general tone of the images to avoid any repetition. For Hudson’s photography, it made the most sense to compartmentalize his food into two primary categories: sweet and savory. While the sweet gallery is predominately sequenced to have a visual flow from one image to the next, the savory gallery does the same while keeping the lighter plates towards the beginning and the heavier, more substantial plates towards the end.

In order to integrate his well-crafted still-life food work on a white background without breaking up and interrupting the sequence and flow of the sweet and savory galleries, we created a separate gallery called “work on white” to house these images. After that, we worked on the vibrant and playful colorful components gallery with the intent of it acting as a segue to the galleries of his conceptual work. 

Like we did with Hudson’s food images, we looked through all of the conceptual images together, picking and rating the strongest, most solidified work. After doing this, it was clear that within this conceptual work, three distinct subcategories had emerged: animals, food, and people. In an attempt to keep this work distinct and cohesive, we simply grouped them into these three separate galleries. The final part of the editing process was to sequence Hudson’s tearsheets with the goal of displaying his skills and client range without showing more examples than necessary.

Hudson was by far the funniest photographer we’ve ever worked with (as if you can’t already tell from his comical and quirky conceptual work)! He was very pleased with our edit and capped our work together with these insightful comments:

When I attempted to sequence my own portfolio, I found it difficult to distance myself from my own work sufficiently to see realistically what would work in my portfolio and what wouldn’t. I would inevitably have my own favorites that I liked for my own oftentimes sentimental reasons, and I dismissed a lot of high quality early work because I had moved along artistically from where I was when I originally made them, and they had lost their appeal to me. Getting an outsider to my creative process, one who could see past my own prejudices, was essential to my web edit, and Stacy was just what I needed. In addition to being supportive throughout the process, she was open to feedback and highly forthcoming about the process itself. As a result, working with her on this edit has left me infinitely more comfortable with the sequencing process, and more confident in my own future changes.

Check out more of Hudson’s work on his website.

Need help with a web edit? Reach out!