12 Rules for Creating an Effective Photography Portfolio

Believe it or not, the efficacy of a photography portfolio isn’t determined by pretty pictures or a fancy website. Sorry, dudes. The most powerful portfolios are those that are straightforward and easy to use, have a strong and very intentional curation, and capitalize on nuance to present imagery in an evocative way.

Viewing a photo portfolio should be an emotional and memorable experience if you set things up the right way. In the slides that follow, we’re going to hold hands—if you want. Really, you’ll learn to put intention behind your portfolio and how to use strategic approaches to make sure your photos are speaking for you the way they should.

12 Rules for Creating an Effective Photography Portfolio

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Flash is cute. Really, if you want to be cute—go for it. But functional? Not so much. Flash sucks for a few reasons: it's slow, it doesn't render if you haven't updated that shit yet (again), and it doesn't show up on some mobile devices.

So, if you've got a potentially important person trying to see your hard work on the go (as so many of us often are), you might be out of luck, boo. Whoops?

HTML is easily translatable across all platforms and loads faster. If you want that photo editor or ad exec or that girl you're crushing on to understand your splendor quick-fast, get with HTML.

Consider using Indexhibit as a site platform—super easy to use framework that will cost you about $30 to get and a little CSS and HTML loving to spruce up. 4ormat is another good one I've been seeing.

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Who are you as a photographer? Let's face it, even though you shoot portraits, sports, food, weddings, nightlife, carnivals, fashion, concerts, fairies, and advertising—we might want to calm down that clusterfuck for the general public, yeah?

As for your site, at least pick a specialty or two—maybe three—and set a clear message for who you are as a photographer.

If you present people with 80,000 options, people are less likely to even remember one. If you have a chance, read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and take in what he said about how people get overloaded when presented with too many choices. You know how the toothpaste aisle is mad stressful, right? You don't wanna be the toothpaste aisle.

When the message on what you offer is clear and concise, people are going to remember you and are thus more apt to call you when they need some snaps.

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So now that you know who you are—rad, by the way—figure out who you need to target.

Having identified your area(s) of interest, you can determine who will probably be visiting your site and deciding whether to hire you.

If you are seeking editorial work, it's going to be photo editors, for advertising work: creative directors or art buyers, and for nightlife: DJs, venue owners, and promoters.

In knowing your target audience, begin thinking about what their objectives might be. What information do you think they will most care about or need to see? What kind of setup will help to make finding that information Kindergarten easy?

Your target audience is going to inform how you lay out your site.

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Keeping your audience, end goals, and body of work in mind, decide how to approach your layout like the gangster you are.

Start by brainstorming sections for your site. Two to four main sections with subcategories works well. For instance, my site is organized with two main sections: "portfolios" entails a few types of visual work and "details" includes things like my contact info and client list.

You can choose to group your work together by type (portrait, fashion, food), mood, or theme (summer, a Sunday afternoon, young love), creative style (black & white, technicolor, graphically manipulated), venue (studio, indoor location, outdoor), client type (editorial, advertising, personal work), assignment (select separate galleries for individual parties, editorials, or ad campaigns), and combinations thereof.

Decide what sections are going to be most effective and efficient for your purposes. Go with intention, keep it organized, and be a boss.

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Keep it simple: Be concise and to the point with your sections and any written text AKA don't go nuts with fifty-leven sections; keep 'em to a minimum. And don't overload people with hella extra info. Calm down.

Keep it clean—Clutter is not your friend. Don't be about that life. Negative space is good. Really, studies prove this, and when you're a nerd, you know these things

Make that shit so your 5-year-old kid bro can do it on an iPad. The easier your site is to navigate, the more likely the visitor is to stay and explore. Think about an overly complex or confusing site you've been on and how quickly you hit that "X." The Internet age is not about patience, it's about having the attention span of a gnat. Quit playing.

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We know you wanna show that extra-tight, super-fresh photo you took of 2 Chainz (really only because it's of 2 Chainz), but if it sucks, please don't. How about the photo that's almost great except that one blemish? Yeah, no.

Almost great does not equate to great. Make sure every single image in your portfolio standing alone could sell your whole portfolio.

Granted, this selection is subjective, but just be honest with yourself. Get feedback from others, and keep the feedback that feels right to you. Even for the beginning photographer, a portfolio of 10 incredible images is way better than a portfolio with 10 additional, almost great images.

These "not quite there" images dilute the value of your incredible images and weaken the viewing experience as a whole.

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Even having picked the best images ever, there may still be a slight hierarchy of greatness.

Make sure to start your portfolio with one of your best or most impactful images and end with one of your strongest images as well.

An amazing first impression will keep people browsing on your site and will leave them with a lasting memory of how they first felt when they saw your work. Closing out with a money shot is going to reinforce that strong impression to make sure your greatness is what sticks out in a viewer's memory. Science!

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Sequencing is incredibly important and really affects the psychology of the viewing process. Sequencing is so powerful that even when I am knowingly creating specific sequences to evoke emotion in others, I still get emotionally affected myself—and that's the goal. When I go back through my sequences to test out if the feel is right, I know I've got it when I start feeling emo in that perfect way myself. Voodoo, y'all.

In my opinion, the best way to receive the full impact of sequencing is by laying out your site using horizontal scroll—it really allows for a fluidity in viewing and storytelling.

The final four sections are devoted to various considerations in sequencing—you can employ one, some, or all together.

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When deciding how to sequence photos, there are many factors—one is color. Positioning photos with clashing colors and tones next to each other looks and feels chaotic—don't do it. Unless chaos is your thin, then do you.

Instead, place photos next to each other based on similar colors, tones, contrast, and lighting. It will create for a smoother viewing experience.

Hopefully, all your photos won't have the exact same attributes, though. With that in mind, pick transitional photos. For instance, a medium contrast photo could work well when transitioning from a glowier, soft light photo to a hard contrast photo. Or if you're placing a lot of bluish photos next to each other and need to move into green, look to see if you have a bluish green photo you can place in the middle to transition. If you need to switch up the colors more than that, opt for a complementary color and at a similar saturation/tone so that you're not being abrupt.

The right black and white can also be a useful transition photograph when having trouble switching between colors.

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You might want to think twice before placing that photo of someone popping Molly next to one of someone reading a book (kinda awkward), but maybe that's what you're going for.

If you are keen on creating a mood with your work or telling a story via mood-driven "vignettes" or scenes, group similar emotions and facial expressions together. Then think about the order in which you want to evoke these different emotions—what journey would you like your viewer to take?

You can move back and forth between moods and make this as complex as you want. It often ends up that way anyway when considering other sequencing factors.

Just like with color, being gradual will help you with transitions. Take three photos—a teethy grin, a closed mouth smile, and a more serious face. You can start with either the teethy grin or serious face, depending on what you want the first emotional impact to be—and then put the closed mouth smile in the middle to create a nice progression.

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Begin by identifying the various types of movements in your photography: hands up in some fashion, sitting, jumping or other major movements, eye contact, booty-popping, whatever.

Grouping your movements by theme and/or intensity will be very helpful. From here, you can go in many different directions. Again, think about the story you want to tell. Keep similar shots together here and there but also definitely mix it up.

Sometimes you can even create motion within a sequence. A person could be pointing in the direction of the following photograph or two photographs could be facing each other with subjects kicking, "looking," or anything-ing in each other's direction. Get creative with it. A lot can be said with movement.

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Last rule. I'm sad, too.

Movement and composition are very complementary and can therefore overlap at times. Here are some compositional themes to be aware of—wide angle, close-up, negative space, major movement, minor movement, profile, and symmetry.

Keeping similar compositions together works well at times, but there's also a lot of power in thinking about what types of compositions are complementary to each other. For instance, if I'm positing a couple portraits from a shoot, I like to put a close-up and a relatively wider angle shot next to each other.

Probably the most important thing to take into account with compositional sequencing is negative space. If you are using a horizontal scroll, photos are back to back with each other, and you need to be careful not to create visual clutter. Use negative space to ensure information in different photographs isn't clashing or competing.

Time to get busy.

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