Printing a portfolio?

[mydigitaleye]

I'm applying for a few universities and they are asking for a portfolio of my work to backup my application.

There are no guidelines, so i have no idea exactly what to do - i want to print up a book via blurb.com to make it look as professional as possible, however i dont know how many images to print.

I dont want to print too few and give the impression that this is all i have to offer, nor do i want to print too many and bore whoever with endless pages of pictures.

Any suggestions?

[OsmosisStudios]

What are you applying for at university? What's the program?

Given that, it'dll be easier to give you an idea.

[mydigitaleye]

two courses, one is 'digital photogrpahy' the other is editorial

[OsmosisStudios]

In that case you'll need 2 different ones.

For the first, a general selection of photos taken with a digital camera should be fine. I'd say 10-15 sounds like a good amount, but make sure they're VERY varied, not only in terms of content but especially with technique. Show off only your best.

Editorial photography is totally different. In this case you need shots that tell a story of some sort, news wise. Not just a standard "art" portrait, but a shot of a person that shows that something significant was going on at the time. Again, 10-15 sounds good, but in this case its more about the content, technical execution and style. Again, show off only your best.

[mydigitaleye]

thanks for the info.

this makes my life a little more difficult now, as what i mainly have in my port are artsy portraits.

I'll sift through them all and see what i can pull out.

thanks once again

[BabetteKD]

Originally Posted by mydigitaleye

I'm applying for a few universities and they are asking for a portfolio of my work to backup my application.

There are no guidelines, so i have no idea exactly what to do - i want to print up a book via blurb.com to make it look as professional as possible, however i dont know how many images to print.

I dont want to print too few and give the impression that this is all i have to offer, nor do i want to print too many and bore whoever with endless pages of pictures.

Any suggestions?

A school will always have a number of prints that they want done. Usually this information is hidden in the massive amounts of text so it is hard to find. Also, this number is different for each school. For one school the requirement least needed was 20 and another the maximum requirement was 12.

My portfolio wasn't very professional at all: it was all handmade, even the binding. Being as stubborn about individuality as I was, I even made it a custom size of 6x7, which made printing on the pages extremely difficult.

For choosing your images, I would find people who have no knowledge of photography and show them all of your images and ask them to pick out their favorites. Sometimes and untrained eye can pick out a better gem than one that scrutinizes too much.

I hope this helps.

[mydigitaleye]

the course information can be found here:

http://prospectus.lsbu.ac.uk/courses...?UCASCode=W640

http://courses.brighton.ac.uk/course.php?cnum=971

As a mature student, i'll have to present a portfolio along with my personal statement to aid my application, although they dont say (or i havent seen) what needs to be put in it.

I will be putting aside some time next week to go through all my pictures to see what fits into each category, then asking people, as suggested, for their input.

pray for me

thanks

[BabetteKD]

I took a look at the links and I understand your confusion. I couldn't find anything relating to portfolio requirements. I think you should go with 12-15 pieces, with an even amount of entries for different sections.

For example, if you choose 12 pictures have 3 portrait pictures, 3 landscape, 3 black and white and 3 extremely post-processed images. I'm not sure what type of photography you do, but this is a suggestion you don't need to follow at all. When I made my first portfolio, I had an uneven number of entries in each section and I was harshy questioned about it every time until I changed it. Some institutions are more comfortable with some style of consistency.

Edit: And to go with what Jim says below, I used InDesign to lay out my portfolio, and Illustrator to print. Illustrator sometimes prints text better than any other program.

[Jim Bryant]

Go here: Building a Portfolio

If it's for editorial, you need sports, news, general news, feature, environmental portrait, pictorial and a picture story. Kinko's can print up a nifty looking spiral one for ya. But you'll have to build it yourself in photoshop, front page or some other illustration program.

[leveup2]

is really useful for me