Your photography is the most important part of your portfolio The purpose of a good portfolio is to show your stunning work, so you can do more of it. If they decide that they like your style, they will then proceed to contact you to see if you’re available. In this guide, I’m going to assume that the purpose of your portfolio is to showcase your work to potential clients so that they can get a feeling of what kind of photographer you are. However, if you’re not an experienced web designer – you must have a singular goal of your portfolio. If you’re an experienced designer you can probably make the correct design decisions and sacrifices that are involved in making multiple objectives work, but then again – you probably wouldn’t even be reading this article. How do I build a website where I can show off both?” – the answer to that is that you don’t.
I’ve seen questions like “ I’m a web developer, but I also love photography. This is extra important if you have Photography as a hobby and enjoy it so much, that you might want to land a gig as a photographer some day. Should you show your abstract photography art in your portfolio? If that helps convey your message, sure, if not – don’t. Should you add an Instagram feed in your sidebar? Well – does that help the objective? If so – add it, if not, – don’t. When faced with a decision – you’ll come back to this point each time and ask yourself – does this help my website with the objective, or am I just doing this because I think it would be cool to do. Write it out on a paper if you have to, but you have to have a singular purpose before you start. You must, you absolutely must clearly define this before you even touch your mouse or trackpad. If you’re making your own photography portfolio – this is super important.
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If you would hire a professional web agency or a knowledgeable freelancer, it’s quite likely you’d have to fill out a Creative Brief.Īpart from the questions about your business, your audience (all important questions of course), one of the questions in a creative brief that you’ll have to fill is simply – what’s the goal of your portfolio website. You have to help your visitor understand whether you are the kind of photographer they’d like to work with. If you have a different definition in mind – share it with me in the comments!Įvery photographer has their own look and feel and your portfolio has to convey that feeling to the visitor. So that’s what I’m going to focus most on in this article. In my opinion, a great photography portfolio is one that will help you display your work and your style. I want to establish what makes a great photography portfolio first.
Opinions may differ when it comes to portfolio websites because different websites have different goals. I hope you’ll learn something valuable from all this. I just want to see better photography portfolio websites out there. The principles I’m laying out in this article are for the web, not a specific platform. It doesn’t matter whether you use WordPress, SquareSpace, WIX, Format, Dreamweaver or Adobe Portfolio to build your own website – if you’re doing it yourself, there are a few things you have to consider. Please do yourself a huge favor and set aside time to read every single word in this “ un-technical” tutorial.
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Before you touch any of the tools, you have to learn the principles of a good photography portfolio and how to think about building your portfolio, then you’ll be able to apply that knowledge in any platform you decide to use. This is not a guide on how to use any of the website builder tools. I’ve learned a lot over the past 4 years of crafting web designs for photographers and after browsing thousands of portfolios I’m going to try to condense as much as I can in this single article. While I am writing this as a guide to creating a good photography portfolio, I think that the principles I’m laying out here apply to all sorts of portfolio websites – graphic designer, architect, fine art, etc. That’s what inspired me to write this article. Making a portfolio is extremely easy, however, making a ton of mistakes is equally easy. You spend your days practicing your photography, not web design.
You’re a photographer, not a web designer. At the same time, I’ve seen a sharp decline in the overall quality of portfolio websites. There are dozens of platforms and thousands of design templates to choose from. With the rise of DIY website tools and builders, It’s easier than ever to build your own photography portfolio website than ever. This guide is for photographers who are about to either make a photography portfolio website for the first time or remake/redesign their existing website.