Big and beautiful

I'm finally ready to face the music now, and deal with the promises I've made and broken about last fall and the ever-distant next trip to NYC. This week I received another helpful nudge from Redux, and Jasmine put in an order for something "big and beautiful" for her to show around town. At the last second I even added a small note at the end of my January newsletter which also locked me into making it happen. So it's go time for a new set of print portfolios from HQ. Lock and load, baby!

Creating a new portfolio is a painful process for me, as it may or should be for everyone. It's become a process that I loathe because as I begin to collect all of the loose ends of projects, assignments, and ideas I've been trying to work on, there is the sudden realization that hardly any of them are as far along as I hoped they would be a year ago. The timing is right though, because it makes sense to begin this arduous journey right in the middle of contest season in photography, a time when we collectively strip our souls and wallets bare in the earnest hope that overworked editors will see something deep within our new work to reward. If anything, portfolios are even more difficult because we are not subject to an abstract set of rules that were created by some contest, and in that freedom we find a wide panic in navigating the troubled waters of printing a dynamic, diverse, and cohesive book of our best work; one that we will be forced to live with, and up to, over the next long haul until we must suck it up and start all over again.

Even while I fully understand the need to put together an updated portfolio, and it is very important to put new, interesting work out there as often as possible, the process can be so unforgiving that even starting down the path can grind your professional life to a dead stop. More than a few times in the middle of designing a portfolio I've basically thrown up my hands and shouted, "holy shit, what am I doing?!" What you are really doing is creating a mirror of your passion and vision of the world you live in, and sometimes that reflection is extremely difficult to see anyway but darkly. In college you start the first rounds of portfolio-making with such hope that it almost seems like fun, but dozens of portfolios later, perhaps sometime in your late 20's after all of the self-doubt and cursing you've experienced at moments late in the night, maybe while standing under the harsh, green glow of a 24-hour Kinkos, desperately trying to make the paper cutter bend to your will... (sigh)... lets move on.

Just like in any other process, there are many important steps to follow in making a new portfolio book. Although I've still yet to officially "begin," I'm already well on my way, because step 1 is actually "denial." Denial can last for months. But once its fading away, you are really about a third of the way done, despite still having finished no real work. Just like shooting free throws, a lot of it is mental. (I'm also a terrible free throw shooter).

My step 2 is actually pretty fun. I like to create a new folder on my hard drive and label it something very official. Perhaps "winter 06/07 editorial print portfolio." Mmmmmm, tasty. Then I create a new iView Media file of the same name and begin importing any picture that I've made since my last portfolio that I like at all. At this moment you start feeling good about yourself because the math seems to be on your side. You know that your finished portfolio (if its to be big and beautiful) will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-60 images), and as you fill up your database of new work the number you'll edit from keeps getting bigger and bigger. Only 40 pictures from this giant pile of great work?! This'll be cake!

But then you move on to step 3, wherein you post this giant edit of new work to a private gallery on your website and invite your close friends (the ones who care enough to make you truly feel like shit) to give you some honest feedback. (I used to encourage honesty, and make a special effort to sound like I'm really open and ready to sort the wheat from the chaff, but I soon realized that it wasn't necessary - carnage doesn't need an engraved invitation). After you send your e-mails you wait by your inbox. Slowly the messages start trickling in from your lazy friends, and the large pile of great pictures starts to look like a giant pile of something else.

Step 4... now that your total images to edit from seems to be under the magic number of 40 (how did that happen?!), its a good time to take a step backwards to throw away several hours on the internet "researching" presentation possibilities for your new portfolio. You already had the idea that you wanted a simple black faux leather 11x14 portrait style book, but are you really sure? Maybe what you need is a custom white crocodile skin 20x30 landscape book with tassels and embossing? Or a giant steel box that is both impossible to open and carry that will hold loose leaf prints? Hmmm... you like squares, don't you? Maybe a square book! How much is that one? Holy shit, you are kidding me?! $350! and it doesn't even come with pages?!

The next morning after some terrifying dreams I wake up and over the 2nd cup of coffee realize that simple is better. This is step 5, and where I'm at today. I'm refocusing on my pictures and trying to find the right mixes. There are so many extremes to fit together that my portfolios become jigsaw puzzles in my head. Personal work vs. client work. Lit portraits vs. snapshots. Subtlety vs. vibrancy. Documentary work vs. portrait vs. travel. Project work vs. the rest of the portfolio. Captions vs. clean design. Page numbers? A CV/bio/client list? Stickers? Will all of the pictures be presented in the same size, or will each layout be designed? Does the designing get in the way of the pictures or enhance them? I want each picture to play off of the ones around it, but I don't want that relationship to be cliché.

Step 5 is the hardest step because you've passed the point of no return and learned enough to know what is not going to work. You would think that experience would help you to navigate the whole process easier, but I'm not sure that its helped for me. Photo editors don't know what they are looking for either. They want to see personal work and your passion, but they also want to be sure that you can do this very specific thing. They want to see something new, but something old as well. I've been told a hundred times, "why is this in b/w?!" but then also told on the next page how much they love how it brings out the emotion. Ultimately what I have learned is that portfolios need to make you excited and risk something. They need to ask questions and open up dialogues, but at the same time answer the larger question of whether or not you can be trusted with an assignment definitively. A portfolio can feel surprising, but pictures can't come out of left field in the middle of it and draw away the editor's focus.

Just like mix tapes, there are a lot of ins and outs; just be careful that you never blow your watt. I'll write a few more updates as I go along and will post the "final" version hopefully in early February.

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