As a professional photographer, your portfolio is your lifeline, it is your catwalk collection, it is your showcase product. It is what people will book you for, or not! Your portfolio needs to be regularly updated, it needs to be seasonal and it needs to be relevant. Whether you choose to display your portfolio on your web galleries, blogs, social media platforms or across all these media, you need to ensure the imagery is fresh, constantly changing, current and always of a consistent standard.

 Your portfolio has a variety of objectives to fulfil and you may find you need a range of portfolios, so that you can fulfil them all. As a general purpose photographer you may have a commercial arm to the business alongside weddings and portraits, each separate genre needs its own portfolio to illustrate the style and quality of the product.

 Your business needs a portfolio that markets you- images that bring the clients in, it also needs a portfolio of sales tools to allow you to capitalise on the imagery you have taken. Beautiful display products for the wall and lavish storybook albums that both showcase your photography but also really ‘sell’ the products beautifully.

 To keep your portfolio current you need to be constantly inspired - as the artist you need to develop and feed your own creativity. Organising or attending styled shoots where you can create beautiful, stylish, visual scenes or work within beautiful venues, taking the time and trouble to get picture perfect imagery, and also having the time to experiment, be playful and push your boundaries as a photographer, will keep you inspired, creative, engaged and at the top of your game and will allow you to furnish your portfolio with some stunning imagery. If you make the effort to do this quarterly, it will give you the opportunity to ring the seasonal changes and to keep your portfolio bang up to date, abreast or even ahead of current market trends.

By Jane Breakell

Image by Jenny Heyworth Photography

http://www.aspirephotographytraining.co.uk/

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