Portfolio Critique Thread

[DanP68]

Right now there is a Portfolio Critique thread running on the Shutterstock boards.  Basically everyone rates the portfolio of the person to last post. 

I think the idea of throwing a rating on someone's portfolio is a little discomforting.  What I feel is most useful is a thread in which the more experienced image producers take a look at a portfolio and add a brief recommendation for improvement.  Could be to shoot a certain subject they are lacking.  Maybe improve lighting, get better colors/pop/contrast...  If the "reviewer" wants to provide an example of a picture they like and why it works, or one which clearly needs some work to be a seller, then that is great.

Anyhow, if others are interested, this could hopefully be both fun and educational.  If anyone wants to lambaste me, go for it.     (SS link below doesn't work, and I don't know why)

[leaf]

you have to enter your shutterstock user ID number and NOT your username .. same thing for fotolia

[DanP68]

Thank you Leaf, problem solved! 

[photojay]

Right now there is a Portfolio Critique thread running on the Shutterstock boards.  Basically everyone rates the portfolio of the person to last post. 

I think the idea of throwing a rating on someone's portfolio is a little discomforting.  What I feel is most useful is a thread in which the more experienced image producers take a look at a portfolio and add a brief recommendation for improvement.  Could be to shoot a certain subject they are lacking.  Maybe improve lighting, get better colors/pop/contrast...  If the "reviewer" wants to provide an example of a picture they like and why it works, or one which clearly needs some work to be a seller, then that is great.

Anyhow, if others are interested, this could hopefully be both fun and educational.  If anyone wants to lambaste me, go for it.     (SS link below doesn't work, and I don't know why)

I looked through your SS portfolio and here is what I see from someone who has only been doing this for two years and made some big mistakes as I went along:

1: isolated pictures of toys---don't do it.  It looks cheezy.  (ie. the picture of the remote control car. 

2: Real estate pictures like this one:   

Pictures of houses are a dime a dozen. That house looks just like every other house.  The power lines have to be cloned out and you need an interesting sky to even be competitive, but there is nothing special that catches someone's eye when looking at the thumbnails.  On SS, the thumbnails matter more than any other site, because there is no larger thumb popup like on DT or other sites.

This one is much better: and I am guessing it is a better seller for you.

3. I love the natural feel of the football and cheerleader photos, but images from the front would obviously do better.  If you can't get a model release for it, you may want to not use it.  Images from the back have limited comercial value and when designers look at your portfolio they are going to get an ameteur vibe. 

Finally, your images are bright and colorful and have some real nice food photos.  I think you are on the right track. 

Hope that was what you were looking for. 

Feel free to critique my portfolio anyone!  I can take the abuse...I mean positive criticism.   

[DanP68]

Thank you Jay. 

You are right in that the toys basically do not sell...except for the trains.  Those sell.  And frankly those were the ones that stood out to me.

Believe it or not, the "typical" ranch home sells 4-6x per month at iS whereas the more spectacular mansion collects a lot of dust pretty much everywhere.      

This is a weird business, is it not?

[photojay]

Thank you Jay. 

You are right in that the toys basically do not sell...except for the trains.  Those sell.  And frankly those were the ones that stood out to me.

Believe it or not, the "typical" ranch home sells 4-6x per month at iS whereas the more spectacular mansion collects a lot of dust pretty much everywhere.      

This is a weird business, is it not?

Wow!  I don't know what to say!  I never would have guessed that in a million years.  I guess it is just the other way around, if I just stopped to think about it.  I call it the "pretty girl" theory.  The plain ranch style house is the pretty girl.  I would think that everyone has access to a house like this and that they would be filling the galleries, but if you do a search, there are MANY more HUGE houses out there, making the extraordinary in real life--commonplace in the world of stock.  So, nobody photographs the plain house, thinking that everyone has photographed it.  I guess it all boils down to doing the research when you think of an idea.  If I come up with a concept, I gotta go to the sites and do a search to see if someone ELSE has thought of that idea.  I could, just as I am in this case, be very surprised!