Take 5, step 5

The portfolio has been side tracked for most of this week, first by sickness borrowed from the girlfriend, and now from a general lack of motivation combined with a hang over (dinner last night was so worth it). However, work on the new book is coming along reasonably well, as I pull together the final rough draft of pages.

There are still too many pictures, almost 30 pages worth, which is 10 more than I was planning on, or even purchased poly sheets for. The work in progress hasn't really found its focus either, and feels detached from section to section. I've done a couple of different sessions of portfolio mix-up -- the newest game sweeping the nation, wherein you arbitrarily move spreads around in a layout and then try to find dynamic new connections -- to little effect.

This morning I spent more than an hour looking through images from the last couple of years that were visually appealing but extremely simple and graphic, a sort of stand-in photo boyfriend to make the other picture in the pair feel special. But after only finding a couple new pairings that I liked I decided that I didn't want to slide down that path anymore... I'm not that photographer, and I don't have those pictures. And both of those things are fine. (Picture a pairing on a portfolio spread, on the left some sort of casual portrait and on the right a random abstract colorful image of a bench or a cloud or a fire hydrant, and you might understand).

I don't want a portfolio of ironically paired pictures whose relationship doesn't mean anything or suggest my interest in a particular issue. I've seen hundreds of those type of portfolios. But what some of them are really successful at, and the reason that I sometimes want to copy them, is that I do want the experience of flipping through my work to be engaging and stimulating, even if I spend most of my time taking my photography somewhat too seriously.

There is a basic rift between the work I am showing and the work I most want to be assigned, and it makes creating a portfolio very difficult. On top of that, there a few groups of images that I'd like to consider including, but just can't because the clients I shot them for still haven't published them (which would allow me to use them for self promotion.) The waiting game of embargoed photography is one of my biggest pet peeves.

I don't have a fix yet for the tone of the portfolio. Perhaps the book is still trying to do too much; trying to cross off to many boxes like some of the photographers you see on portfolio websites who list 25 different specialties. The last section currently ends in a 3-spread burst of moody travel images, which are nice and images that I absolutely know editors will respond to, but one of the solutions may be to just delete that section all together. That would at least focus the book on editorial, portrait, and documentary work. Hopefully some of my friends can help me cut some of the portrait spreads as well. Though I doubt Redux will agree, there are just too many portraits in there.

Judyta suggested giving myself a false deadline to get at least the draft version out the door for feedback, and she's right. Tonight I'll plunk down rough copies of each picture into my newly upgraded version of InDesign and will export a pretty PDF to really get the ball rolling. Hopefully my excitement about finally getting my hands on the new portfolios I'm using will keep me rolling -- the shipment arrives tomorrow.

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