Photos by GAF BRYSON, Shawnee Mission Northwest H.S. (Shawnee, Kansas); Susan Massy, adviser • superior rating
Creating a portfolio Some advice from professional photographers regarding assembling portfolios. • Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest image. • Presentation is very important but content is even more important. William P. Cannon, Dayton Daily News • Editors want to see photos, and not hear or read excuses (“this would’ve been a better print, but I had to stay up to study for an exam the night before...”) • Spelling and grammar in your cover letter, resume, and captions, are as important as the photos you present. • Go beyond the obvious. Don’t show spot news and sports action photos without also presenting photos which show how people are affected by the action. • Pick pictures that show a variety of lens selection, lighting techniques, and vantage points. Mark Hertzberg, Director of Photography, Journal Times (Racine, Wis.) Continued on the next two pages
Spring 1999
By Bradley Wilson • Communication: Journalism Education Today • 1
Each bad picture diminishes three good ones. Don’t keep the junk in just because you had a good time when you shot it. David Burnett, Contact Press Images (a world-wide magazine photojournalism agency) Photos by MICHAEL DALBOM, Shawnee Mission Northwest H.S. (Shawnee, Kansas); Susan Massy, adviser • superior rating, color yearbook photography
• Have someone else (advisor, photographer at the local paper) help you edit the portfolio. Many photographers are poor judges of their own work. Your opinion can be flawed, for example, by the difficulty it took to get a shot — but someone else may just see a routine picture. • Don’t put something in just to have it. If you don’t have any good sports shots, don’t put a weak one in your portfolio. Photo editors like to see versatility, but there are no set requirements as to the number of features, sports, news, portraits etc. you must have to make a good portfolio. However, if you don’t usually shoot one area well or don’t like to shoot in that area, it’s still beneficial to put one or two outstanding shots in if you have them. George Bridges, freelance photographer, Washington, DC 2 • Communication: Journalism Education Today • By Bradley Wilson
Spring 1999
Photos by CHRIS OBERHOLTZ, Oak Park H.S. (Kansas City, Missouri); Bill Hankins, adviser • superior rating, black-andwhite yearbook photography Spring 1999
By Bradley Wilson • Communication: Journalism Education Today • 3
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Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest image. • Quality, not quantity. A young photographer is not expected to have an enormous portfolio. • A portfolio should (eventually) be 20 of your best images plus one picture story. • Presentation is very important but content is even more important. • Captions need to be well written with good use of grammar and punctuation. Try to present in a visually pleasing format rather than just plain lines of text. Include all the “W’s”. • Slides are definitely the format of choice. Compact, cheap and easy to ship. William P. Cannon, Dayton Daily News 1.
Spot news, spot news, SPOT NEWS! For photojournalists, it is the most lacking area of their portfolios. 2. Learn to shoot in a studio. Sometimes you have to put in some shots that you probably rather not, such as fashion and food. This is important even for print journalists to show they have studio skills, especially if they plan to works for newspapers with Life/Arts sections, where sometimes they run A LOT of photos of food and fashion. (Sung Park can attest greatly to this. He was also the one who gave me this advice.) 3. I’d rather shoot a high school sporting event than either professional or college level. It’s more intimate and more emotion. These kids are doing it for the love of the game. A good sports reaction shot complementing an action shot is a plus. 4. Avoid cliche shots, such as coaches getting drenched after they win the district championship (I am guilty of that one). Adriane Jaeckle, my photo editor at the Texan sent several emails to photo editors of several publications asking what they look for in applicants portfolios, and many, including the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated said they like to see shots that shows the photographer was not afraid to try something different. This could mean sacrificing the in-you-face emotion shot for a different, unique angle (for example, Heinz Kluhmeier of SI and his shot of the US Hockey victory at the 1980 Olympic Games in Canada. He shot from the stands. It’s the most famous hockey photo ever.) Andrew Loehman Show us your versatility: Innovative alternatives to “grip-n-grin” and “firing squad” group shots. • Breaking news shots, not the soft features or 84 ways dogs catch Frisbees. • Strong mugs with people doing something or saying something, not studio-type slugs. • Also show how you overcame the impossible assignment or physical problem to get the shots. Griff Singer
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The portfolio should be appropriate to the publication you are applying to. Don’t submit a bunch of kiddie and landscape pictures to a newspaper that doesn’t run photos like that. • Editors want to see photos, and not hear or read excuses (“this would’ve been a better print, but I had to stay up to study for an exam the night before...”) • Spelling and grammar in your cover letter, resume, and captions, are as important as the photos you present. • Go beyond the obvious. Don’t show spot news and sports action photos without also presenting photos which show how people are affected by the action. • Portraits should be photos that say something about the subject. Their strength comes from what the photos says, not from the name of the subject; a photo of a famous person simply standing at a podium or of a famous musician on stage usually does not qualify as a strong portrait. • Pick pictures that show a variety of lens selection, lighting techniques, and vantage points. Mark Hertzberg, Director of Photography, Racine, Wis., Journal Times Each bad picture diminishes three good ones. Don’t keep the junk in just because you had a good time when you shot it. David Burnett, Contact Press Images (a world-wide magazine photojournalism agency) 1.
Make it easy for the person viewing - clean presentation, good prints, etc. 2. 2. Make sure they have a light table if you gonna use slides. (unless their mounted 8x10 dupes) 3. Show what you WANT to shoot as well as what you CAN shoot. 4. Be thorough, but harsh. Don’t show anything less than your best. If you have an iota of doubt about a picture, lose it. It’s better to show only five great shots that reflect your vision than 20 that only prove you can do what everyone else can do. Davis Barber, The Daily Breeze in Torrance •
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Have someone else (advisor, photographer at the local paper) help you edit the portfolio — many photographers are poor judges of their own work. Your opinion can be flawed, for example, by the difficulty it took to get a shot — but someone else may just see a routine picture. Show only your strongest work. Don’t worry about having not enough images. A high school student will not have the experience of professionals and editors/ advisors know this. It is too tempting to think you need a certain number of images or simply more than you have, but that can water down your presentation. Show a variety of use of lenses, angles, and lighting. No one wants to look at 20
4 • Communication: Journalism Education Today • By Bradley Wilson
horizontal images shot close up with a wide-angle lens. • Don’t put something in just to have it. If you don’t have any good sports shots, don’t put a weak one in your portfolio. Photo editors like to see versatility, but there are no set requirements as to the number of features, sports, news, portraits etc. you must have to make a good portfolio. However, if you don’t usually shoot one area well —for example features— or don’t like to shoot them, but have one or two outstanding shots then put those in. • Show versatility in lighting. Controlling light whether it is available, flash, low light or shadows is the main principle behind photography. • When editing, remember that you want to grab the viewer’s attention immediately and try to hold that interest. It is similar to writing a news story — put your strongest images first. However, many people remember the last thing they see so make sure the last few images remain strong. (an aside: I knew one photographer in college who hated shooting sports, but the last picture in his portfolio was a strong football action shot—the only sports in the presentation. A photo editor looked at his portfolio and commented “You really shoot sports well.”) • All images don’t have to come from assignments. There is no rule saying you can’t take a friend and do a creative, studio portrait of them for your portfolio. George Bridges, Freelance, Washington, DC •
Quality not Quantity of images – If you have only 10 strong images, show me those only. Edit ruthlessly (No pictures of Rocks, trees, Flowers, Sunsets unless you are Galen Rowell of course) • Emotion– Every image should evoke some sort of emotion. Happy, sad, sympathy, wonder, amazement, etc. • Imagination– A different view of the ordinary • Vision– I want to see that the photographer has something to say. • Craft– Images should show a mastery of the technology and photo mechanics (exposure, focus, understanding of light, etc) • Variety– News, Spot news, Features, Sports, Multiple picture package, stories, studio, location lighting, etc. • Cleanly composed images • Portfolios should be presented as slides in normal slide pages-none of those huge presentation boards. It is best to have scans output as slides but done carefully, slides from prints produce adequate quality. Some editors accept portfolios on disk. For me, a disk of JPEGs with Quickshow for viewing is fine. For me the digital portfolio demonstrates a knowledge of digital imaging and is less expensive to produce for the applicant. Alan Youngblood, Photo Editor, StarBanner, Ocala, FL
Spring 1999