Seeking Advice on Tightening a Portfolio Edit

I’d pull 14 out of the “shadows”, along with one of the silouettes.

I’d pull 12, 15, and 16 out of “libya.”

I’d pull 9 and 6 out of “morocco,” and separate 1 and 2, the repetition of the tilt angle was distracting.

“albania” was your most captivating body of work, and also your tightest edit. If I were to cut anything it might be the shaving shot or one of the wedding shots, although they are both very strong. I might try to make some metaphor between how the country is changing and compare it to marriage. Then use those two marriage photos for the first and last images of the piece.

5, 6, 12, 14 I felt were your weakest portraits, you have a good mix of candid and traditional.

Feel free to tear my portfolio apart is you’d like. I’m at ckpj.com It always very hard to get a good critique. My email is on my site, so if you’d like my reasons for my edits, you can email me or pm me or post back here.

I liked most everything I saw, your website works great. I’d like captions, but once I started flipping everything it didn’t bother me too much. It seemed like your “shadows” story needed them more than anything else since it was more of an issue oriented piece rather than a piece tied to a place.

Thanks Cameron. I’ll pm you for more specific feedback.

bump

Hi Charlie,

I wish I had something more constructive to say about the edit, but after a quick look through it all, what I’m missing most are captions.

Some great work there. Cheers, P.

Captions are coming. I’m building that in to the site shortly.

Thanks Paul!

charlie:

“living in the shadows” is edited quite well (though i would eliminate 11 and 18), and is your strongest body of work by far, imo. in “libya” i would axe 5, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16 and 19. in “morocco” i would eliminate 2, 5, 9 and 12. in “albania” i would get rid of 3 and 4. i am not a big fan of the “portrait work” section, though i do like 7, 10, and 12.

also, you might consider settling on one portfolio to market yourself and keep the other “portfolios” as projects.
looking at your work, i would say your strongest portfolio candidates are:

living in the shadows: basically everything (i REALLY like this project and your pictures are fantastic)
libya: 1, 6, 12, 15
morocco: 10, 13
albania: 11
portrait work: 7, 10

hope this helps. feel free to critique my work (www.davidlroot.com) since i have just cut up yours.

nice blogging btw.

-dave

Hey David,

I appreciate your feedback. I’ll take a look at your specific comments later, but one quick question: What do you mean when you say that I should consider setting one portfolio to market myself and the other portfolios as projects? I’m not sure I understand what the differences would be.

Thanks again.

charlie, i think he’s suggesting having one portfolio representing your best images from different countries, plus the others showing more in depth coverage.

i liked the morocco pics the best of these – especially as i’ve just come back from there myself. libya i felt most needed trimming – i would lose pics 12-16.

all in all, great stuff!

david

charlie:

sorry if i wasnt clear…i meant take the best images from all of your “portfolios” and make a single cohesive portfolio, but keeping your “portfolios” and renaming them as “projects” or something similar.

perhaps this is moot as you are represented by WpN.

-dave

Thanks David and all the others who sent me pm’s!

Ok, I’ve finally gotten around to compiling the commentaries I’ve received from everyone and it’s amazing how there were some cases of complete agreement and then other cases of complete disagreement. In any event, the photos I wanted to pull in the Libya portfolio were 5, 8, 12,15 and 16. Consensus has led to my adding 19 and 20 to the black list.

In the other portfolios, there was less feedback and consensus so the Living in the Shadows portfolio I am planning to leave as is. Maybe I’ll pull a photo or two but I’m pretty happy with it’s status at this time.

In the Albania portfolio, I was leaning towards yanking 4 and 7 and am planning to stick to that decision.

In the portrait work portfolio, there was less feedback although the little criticism that I did receive was load and clear. I was already planning to remove 5, 11, 13, 14 and 16, so I think I’ll start chopping there and then after adding some new material will probably axe more.

Thanks all for helping me refine me eye!

love the opening shot
shadows..love also 4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 19
libya, love 6, 11
morocco love 6, 7, 14
albania love 2,3,4, 5, 8, 9, 11
portrait 9, 10, 15

wish the images sized up if you increase the window size

lots of wonderful work i hadn’t seen!!!

Aiiiii! Erica!!!!! I know you are capable of one negative thought. Come on channel your Dark side. Find the blackness in your heart.

Please beat me up here. The editors are going to do it or they’re going to just click on to another site, so please tell me what you think should be out.

Or does your love imply cutting everything out that you do not love? Ouch, now that would be cruel;-)

I’ve made the edits now, so hopefully it will all look a little cleaner. If anyone else wants to make comments just keep in mind that the many of the numbers above no longer apply. Thanks again all!

It looks tight!

..okay..I think Shadows is the strongest piece, and therefor could do without 13, to keep it really solid.

And I think the title image of Albania would be better suited with a different image, maybe the guy being shaved..

Actually, when I was studying printmaking and we had to do all those crits of other students work, I decided I had better not become an art professor because all that blah blah blah people said about their ART when it really really wasn’t, uh, artful..made me want to speak in such a brutally honest way..and I could just imagine myself telling 18 year olds..find another path. Stop now.. or make art only for yourself and hand in all dreams of ‘success’. That’s pretty mean.

You don’t have to be mean. Really, these are all just subjective opinions. There are images that I like that I’m not going to take out no matter what, but there are other images where I have my doubts, and this is where someone’s feeedback can really help.

For example in the case of 13 in Living in the shadows, I agree! It’s gone.

In Albania, what about the now second image (of the boys jumping off the dock) being the first image?

That was my second choice..brings the vibe up at the start

Coolio. Thanks Erica!

I know you’ve already edited down things quite a bit, but looking through you work, I did have some images I might consider removing:

Shadows: 8 – I wish that shot had some more context in it.

Lybia: 10

That’s it. The Albania set is your best set, IMO.

Hope that helps. I’m revamping my site, so you’ll have a chance to hack my my selctions.

Hey Brian. Thanks for the feedback. I do appreciate it. Those are two photos that I personally like, although others have been in agreement with you. That being said, I’m sticking with them.

I look forward to meeting you in DF, so we’ll have plenty of time to debate photos there;-)

I think the shadows piece is the BEST of your projects. It really draws me in and I can see the story in each picture. The only “suggestion” I have is that I would have LOVED to have individual captions for each image on the shadow story because I’m dying to learn more about the subjects. I believe your other works speak well without individual captions. Hope this helps. :) Great work and congrats on your foundry scholarship! I’m lovin’ your blog.

Thanks Alex. I’m trying to update the blog more often, so it’s great to hear that someone actually looks at it.

As far as the captions go, I’m working on adding that capability to the site with the guy who works on the site’s back end. He does this in his free time, so I expect to have the captions up by the turn of the century.