The Portfolio
Ice Nine Porfolio
Seems strange in this current internet age that photographer’s still need portfolios to show prospective clients in order to solicit work. One would think that with websites and email marketing campaigns, we wouldn’t need portfolios anymore. But it isn’t true. We still need to have a portfolio to show off our prints and tear sheets. It actually gets me a little irked, to be honest. I need a website, a portfolio (actually I need 2 portfolios…one I keep and one my rep keeps), a promo card and a business card. That’s a lot of money and a lot of time and energy to put into your marketing tools. But it’s an industry “must” and so I must conform. And you must too if you want to compete in today’s highly competitive market.
I intend to write a lot about the business side of fashion photography, with marketing yourself a main subject. Today I will start with the Portfolio! I have had one since graduating from college in 1987. “Back in the day”, can you believe I wrote that?, we all had the same style of book. 11″ X 14″ black leather Brewer-Cantelmo book (shown below).
Oh and by the way, “book” is another word for portfolio. In fact, I rarely use the word portfolio. I call it “my book”. Brewer-Cantlemo is a pretty hip company and they’ve been making portfolios and cases for 80 years! That’s a long time to be in the industry making books!! I love their quality and they are very service oriented, but they tend to be a bit pricey. So after about 4 years, a lot of us jumped over to House of Portfolios.
In the early ’90′s, House of Portfolios was about $100 less expensive for relatively the same book. The standard back then was your black leather portfolio with your name stamped on the cover and after a few years, we chucked in the fancy carrying cases that both companies offer in lieu of the canvas tote bag. After trying to get that Fed Ex sticker off the front of your expensive leather carrying case with no luck, we opted for the canvas bag because we didn’t care if it got beaten up on the road. And it does. My book has come back in all kinds of disarray. You can’t sweat that but you can cut costs by going with the simpler bag.
By looking at the two sites today, their prices are fairly even. Brewer-Cantelmo’s 11″ X 14″ genuine leather book runs about $289.00. That’s without the stamp or the extra sleeves. And of course you can all kinds of extras like a front as well as back cover pocket, accent stitching, custom stamping, lining upgrade, etc. There’s a lot to choose from to make your book a bit more unique. At House of Portfolios, for their genuine leather 11″ X 14″ book, you’re looking at $245.00. And you can pretty much get some of the added extra features from them as well.
A year ago, however, I signed with a rep who informed me that my black leather House of Portfolio book was (and I quote) “too nineties!”. I need to “get with the program” and update my entire “look” to the new millennium. OUCH! So where do photographers go now? There are a couple of options: Case Envy or Pina Zanaro.
I bought a beautiful book from Case Envy last year. I got the ice nine portfolio in a frosted acetate (pictured on top). You can see the first image in my book through the frosted front cover and it looks amazing. I got the white frost for this effect. They have other colors you can choose from.
I just signed with a new rep. The relationship between photographer/rep is something I will definitely cover in future posts! It’s a very important relationship (and I have a lot to say on the subject). Any way, she wanted me to get a black high gloss book from Pina Zangaro because it matched with my website and my business cards. It’s an overall brand to my style and my name. So I just bought two new shiny black 11″ X 14″ books last week! I bought the Vista Portrait book (pictured below). They both were significantly less expensive than Brewer-Cantlemo or House of Portfolios. And they are more up to date. Photographers are using more acetate and plastic for portfolio materials than leather.
I do remember the first time my rep had me “drop off” my book to a client. I spent an hour shining up my leather book, cleaning the sleeves and straightening the prints. I drove my book over to the ad agency and walked in to the pristine lobby. I told the receptionist that I was there to drop off my book. She pointed to the floor to the right of her desk and said, you can drop you it there. I looked over to where she was pointing and saw at least 50 books that all looked the same! Wow, was that an eye opener! I guess now days our books stand apart a little bit. There still are 50 books up for the same gig, but now we have different portfolios to give it a little bit of an “edge” to the competition. Although, in the end, it’s not what’s on the outside of your book that counts but what’s on the inside.
So in saying that, go with what you feel represents your style the best! If you think a chrome cover shows your high fashion off well, go with it! It’s important, like my current agent says, to keep within a “brand” or identity to who you are. My websites are black, my business card is black, my promo cards are black, so it makes sense to go with a shiny black portfolio cover. Find out what your style is and then order your book accordingly. I will say that I like to stick with vertical or “portrait” style books. I know fashion photographers are stepping outside the box these days and going with “landscape” style portfolios. But fashion is vertical! It’s not landscape, generally. This is a personal taste thing, and I’m always an advocate for breaking the rules, as you all should know by now. So if that’s your taste, go for it! Figure out if you consider your work to be conservative and you’re going after big clients or if you’re book is going to go in to the more hip agencies and magazines. The look of your book should compliment you and your style of photography!
This post is fantastic! You cover all the basics and for us just starting out, this is sage information.
thanks~
Jessica
http://www.momshots.com
Hiya Melissa, how about using a photobook to show to clients. This is done using a software then creating a new book. You can choose a book format and select the type of cover binding and the number of pages. Then you select your picture folder then drag the photos into the book. Do you think this is acceptable to show to potential clients?
Thanks
Pauline
Hi Pauline
I’ve seen those and they look great! But I don’t think they are considered an “industry standard” yet. You have to consider who your potential clients are, though. For my clients, it would be more acceptable to send one of those books as a gift if I got a really great response from my book. But the standard books mentioned here, and I’m sure there are others, are more acceptable forms of portfolios. That’s my opinion though.
Thanks!
hey melissa,
the pina zangaro books are fantastic. the best part is that you can get them either lazer etched or screen printed to make them fit your marketing. like throwing your white “m photography” logo on the front. i’m using the white vista books at the moment with sleeves. though i just saw that pina came out with fine art pages that you can print directly on, i might try those when i revise my book.
great new post!
ian
Great post! Timely in my case as I’m about to put together my first book. I was wondering you have a personal preference between screw post and ring binding? I think I like the look of screw posts better, but I don’t know if people will find them annoying.
Rahul
Eye of Ra Photography
Hey Rahul
I guess I prefer the screw post but honestly I went with the book my rep wanted. Her other photographers have the same book style but in different colors, so it was a uniformed identity for her. But if I was ordering for myself I would have to go with the screw post binding!
I haven’t thought of using this type of portfolio books before, I am still experimenting with photobooks and such, but I am curious what’s a good number of photos you should have in a portfolio book such as yours? I presume more don’t mean better? or is it (Diversity??) ???
Melissa, the one point i feel may add to your post is Matt, or Glass finish for the actual images. I much much much prefer the feel and look of a matt finish image, is this what you use in your book?
Hello
i just found this blog when u added me on flickr.
good source. nice informations.
i just added it to netvibes.
thanks for sharing,
ez,
g
Great Post ! I really like your blog !
I habe 2 questions left, probably interesting for other readers, to,
do you think a ± 8″x12″ portfolio (European A4 size) is big enough ?
and how much overlaps your portfolio picture selection with that for your website ?
Do you have same images in there or completly different ?
Hi ! Great Post !
I really like your blog !
I habe 2 questions left, probably interesting for other readers, to,
do you think a ± 8″x12″ portfolio (European A4 size) is big enough ?
and how much overlaps your portfolio picture selection with that for your website ?
Do you have same images in there or completly different ?
Hi, Melissa!
Great article. A lot of my questions were answered, but I still have one, if you are kind to help me. What dimensions should have a promo card? Any hint about how it should look? Thanks.
Claudiu
Hey Claudiu
I am going to cover promo cards next, so just hold on a couple of more days!! ; )
Sebastian: I’m not a fan of the 8″ X 12″ portfolio. But alas, after meeting with my agent yesterday to revamp my book, she is putting a very high end 11″ X 14″ print only book together and then told me to get an 8″ X 11″ book for my tear sheets to keep it separate. I asked her if she liked that size and she does. So off I go to order one of those size books! I go with what my agents want because they are the ones showing my book and getting the real honest feedback from the clients.
Your book should emulate your website with a few different shots in there if you’d like. But they both should have your distinct “style”. You know what I mean?
Melissa,
Just to let you know, I’ve been reading your blog a lot recently, having bookmarked it, and I just wanted to say that it is the best resource of it’s kind I’ve been able to find anywhere on the internet.
Fashion photography is something I’d love to make a career out of, so reading this is a great learning experience. I just need to find some willing models!
Thanks for posting this
Hello,
Love the blog, and especially found this post to be very helpful as Im currently workin on my first book too.
You mentioned that you use the 11×14 size book. Is this the standard size? Also, do you use only portrait oriented images in your current book, or does the reader have to flip back and forth when looking at landscape style shots, or something else?
Thanks!
Useful post thanks!:) Just one additional point about personalising portfolios and photo albums for you or your clients, here are some examples…
Your blog is a god send.
You always manage to answer my question with out me even asking. get out of my head. lol
I do have a question though about actually printing the images that go into the portfolio…especially printing images that have been taken with a DSLR and not a film camera.
Do you reccomend any particular company to send your images off to be printed? Do you have any general tips about printing digital images in preparation for your “book”?
Hi Courtney! I actually bought a very good printer, an Epson Stylus Photo R2880. I am pretty tired of spending hundreds of dollars at the lab and getting mediocre prints. So in answer to your question, I do my own printing now. Tips on printing? Get a lot of caffeine and tap into that Patient Angel cuz it can be a tedious and arduous task. I want perfect prints so I pains stake over the process. When outsourcing the work to a lab, though, you can actually ask them what color profile their using. Usually they use “Adobe RGB 1998″ from what I’ve noticed. Then all you have to do, is convert the profile to that in Photoshop. Hope this helps!
M
This blog post reminded me of a company I’ve wanted always wanted to get a portfolio case from but they’re quite expensive once you start adding all the options like spring handles and embossed company name on the side, etc etc…
Anyway, despite the cost, it may interest your readers if they’re looking for something different:
http://www.aluminiumcases.com/products.html
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[...] whole promotional engine can start to get expensive! You remember my post on portfolios. Since I wrote that post, I have signed with Cindy Newman at D1 Agency and we changed up my [...]
What a great blog post.
I am in the middle of rebranding my company and compiling my first set of books. I hadn’t thought of the continuity factor in the style of the book. I will def be waiting until my new site design and logo is complete before searching for a book. Thanks.
I look forward to reading the agent blog. There are so many questions I have about the subject including:
how do you approach potential agents?
what should you show a potential agent?
what is an appropiate number of great images a photographer should have to show an agent?
In what form should we show our images to an agent?
Do agents find the photographer or does the photographer seek an agent?
I could prob keep going but maybe I should wait until you write the blog.
Take care.
does anyone know what the standard size for fashion photgraphy is for prints?…I used to model and we needed to have 9 by 12 prints for our books…on the photgraphy end is 11 by 14 the industry standard?…or does it vary?
Wow! thanks a lot for so much good tips and tricks
Hi, I find your blog truly helpfull and I loved this post. However, I’ve got a doubt. How many photos should we have in our portfolios?
Greetings,
Micael from Portugal.
Great website and good source of information
It really is about presentation to the client. As they say “first impression is everything!”
Now-a-days photography is not being given its due respect as a top profession. Though many are seeing it as a hobby or a talent, photography as a profession is on the decline and this is mainly due to the lack of proper platforms and the easy availability of photo editing software and so on
I am very impressed with your site. The quality of the design and content makes it a real winner! Thanks again for a great site and a great resource on the net.
A very interesting site which I have enjoyed reading the many articles. As a budding amature of of necessity, it’s been great to get so many tips,
The link to the ice portfolio doesn’t work! I want to purchase one of these, I think they look very slick.
bookmarked!
wonderful tips and tricks in deed, thank you, bookmarked for sure
Hi Melissa,
I found this site cuz you added me to your friends in flickr.
You have an amazing job here. What a great web blog. This is one of the best i have ever seen in internet for photography & fashion. Cool.
I live in Turkey and i cant find this portfolio books and covers here :/ do you know how can i find? where can i buy these? Can you help me or send me a link?
By the way, if you want to visit istanbul you have a great photographer friend here
Take care
Hi, that was definitely an awesome read. I had actually been looking for a photo printing related blog for a while now. Great! I have a similar blog, how much do you charge for advertising? because I can’t seem to locate the details anywhere.
Thanks for sharing these resources. It is just what i have been looking for. Much appreciated.
Hi Melissa,
I am a great fan of your blog and I´m reading it step by step-trying to read all your articles
you are just great and give very important and useful tipps- thank you so much!
I don´t know if you still answer questions to your former posts but I am currently building up my porfolio and was asking myself if I can also mix up vertical pictures with the landscape format. Is that possible? Because I have some pics in landscpape format which I would love to ad to my book but I am not sure if that is common or simply a big fault. I would appreciate an advice of a pro
Thanks so much,
Kathrin