Community Tips - Building a photography portfolio

Building a portfolio is one of the best ways to showcase your work to potential clients, demonstrating your skill and style as well as putting across a little piece of yourself. But where should you start? What platform should you use to build it, and what should you put in it? These questions were why we asked our community for their advice on the subject, compiling their tips for you here to hopefully help in your portfolio creation process!

What your portfolio should contain

Our first piece of advice comes from Lorna (photosbylorna_), who sent in "No need to put every photo you've ever taken on there...definitely select your best photos to showcase your best work". Photographers early in their career may be tempted to put anything and everything on their portfolio to show every bit of experience they've had, however this can easily become detrimental. This advice is echoed by Felicity (felicitybfphotography), who said "Choose your best images from a shoot with variety rather than multiple similar images - unless it was done with creative purpose". Each image should be placed on your portfolio for a reason, not just to pad out space! It can also be worth sometimes saving your best shots for your portfolio so people need to check it out rather than having everything on your social media, with Nic's (nicgoesgigging) advice of "Avoid showing people every shot on your posts and keep galleries on your sites as your best ones. Everyone wants to get THE shot and most people want to see THE shot".

Put up the work that is not only what you believe to be your best, but also that you believe showcases your style. It doesn't hurt to show the diversity of what you can shoot either, across a variety of genres and venues, as put by Arthur (arthurloiseauphoto): "Show a variety of what you can do in different settings; low light, landscape etc". This is similarly stated by Christina (christinx.cxptures), submitting "Choose variety but try to have some cohesiveness in your style (be it angles or editing style)". Plus, an important point to remember is that while you do want to show your flexibility, you also want your work to be recognisable!

Where to build your portfolio

Now, where to actually start making your portfolio. Our first piece of advice here comes from Sabine (sabinedgphotography), who said "After some shows I had a few good shots, so put together a portfolio on Adobe Portfolio. I chose this one, because it's included in the photography pack from adobe, so I already owned it. It's a very easy site to navigate and put together, not as difficult as a WordPress site. That portfolio I sent to a small venue and they took me in on their photographer team". The preference for Adobe Portfolio continues with a further comment from Lorna, saying "I found the free one that came with Adobe really helpful". As Adobe Portfolio comes free with any Creative Cloud subscription, it will most likely be the preferred choice for many photographers, as the ease of use combined with already owning it is just a great opportunity!

On the other hand, we have K (kgshoots_) and their preferred site: "Squarespace is my personal favourite site builder!". While pricier than the Adobe alternative, Squarespace is the go-to site builder for many thanks to the level of customisation and an overall professional feel, at the cost of a steeper learning curve and an additional spend. If you already have an Adobe CC subscription, then it's definitely worth trying it out and getting to grips with the basics of portfolio building, then exploring other builders down the line as and when needed/you feel like it!