Pixiq

A commentator on a cable network recently said rather snidely, “We just got a number to call so get a pencil and paper, if you remember what those are, and write it down.”

Well, dammit despite the idea that everything from music to photos to great novels are reducible to things on a screen, just bits and bytes. Some of us still live in the world of hard copy. Moreover, I will stand up and shout for all to hear, that there is a real difference between experiencing, seeing, holding, and touching an actual photographic print and a dimly glowing screen shot. The web is a great place for first impressions, if you know what I mean, but I would like to get back to the solid world of photographic prints and using them to market yourself and your product.

Especially, if you are a creative artist there is simply no substitute for a portfolio of well-done prints to show potential clients, art buyers, gallery owners, and such. Unlike images on the web, viewed on a monitor or an iPad or god forbid, a phone, a large portfolio is a tactile way of presenting your work. It creates an opportunity to have one of those nasty, face-to-face, human interactions. Not a Facebook, encounter with a simulacrum of a human being. It offers you a chance to perhaps have a conversation, exchange information, and build relationships that can prove important for your career.

I say this from my own experience. Earlier this year I spent a few weeks photographing in France and from that shoot created a portfolio of about two dozen images. I printed these images as 11x17 inch borderless prints and put them in a presentation portfolio. These big prints are very beautiful and, when I show them to people, they respond, almost physically. One person looking at my Paris Metro subway shots (several are posted in the Gallery) said, “I can almost smell the crowd and hear the clack of wheels.” People will go back and forth between images and sometimes almost touch particular prints. I took this portfolio to a few galleries and had several offers for shows as well as great conversations about art and life and stuff like that.

Yet, when I send these images to people via email, the response is muted. While still positive, seeing them on a computer monitor they are just not as strong as the big prints. The images are vertical so they appear pretty small on a monitor —anywhere from six to ten inches tall and maybe four inches wide so it easy to see why they don’t come across well. It just reinforced my sense of the power of a portfolio.

When I’m putting a portfolio of prints of my work together, I try to follow a couple of basic rules to create a strong presentation.

1. Theme. A portfolio should have a theme, something that unifies it. In my case it was the Ile-de-France. I think that a theme makes a stronger than one of your favorite photos, your greatest hits.  

2. Framing. I like my images to be “framed” in the viewing space. When putting prints in a large presentation case I print borderless prints and center them on the black pages.

3. Flow. A strong portfolio flows well. I try to make a portfolio of images that are either all vertical or all horizontal images. When a viewer has to turn a portfolio around between horizontal and vertical images, I think, it breaks up the flow and reduces the impact. If you have to mix vertical and horizontal images, bunch them together and have as transitions as possible.

4. Tweaking the photos. For a portfolio I want the pictures to have “pop” and to that end I so increase the contrast and the saturation of the prints above what I would normally print. Since they are put in plastic sleeves which tends to flatten both color and contrast, I think it helps.

5. Number. A good portfolio is small perhaps a dozen to two dozen images. If someone doesn’t get your work in twelve pictures, thirty more or forty more won’t make a different. Keep it tight and keep it powerful.

I have a pretty complete digital darkroom and its centerpiece is a big 13x19 inch printer. It is what I made my prints with for my portfolio. These big prints called for big presentation cases and it took me quite a while to find the right ones.

Most art supply stores didn’t have much to offer in the way of portfolio cases. There were carrying cases, which work for loose prints or artwork but aren’t made for un-matted photographic prints. Occasionally they had leather ring binder cases, loaded with large two sided plastic pages. I’ve used these in the past but they are an expensive and the pages always seemed to slip out of the rings when I am showing the prints.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered a source of great portfolio and presentation folders. What I use now are portfolio books made by Itoya. They come in a number of sizes with various numbers of pages. They are well made and inexpensive—the 24 page 11x17 book shown in the photo at XXXX( photo: portfolio.jpg) cost $15!

They are available at Amazon (www.amazon.com), Adorama Camera (www.adorma.com ), B&H PhotoVideo (www.bhphotovideo.com ) and Dick Blick art Supplies (www.dickblick.com) among others.

However people have printers that can only make up to letter size--8.5 x 11 inch--color photos. That is okay too. When I have a group of pictures that I feel work together to tell a story, I often create a mini-portfolio in a “display book” folder rather than a big presentation portfolio of large prints. These display books consist of a cover into which you can slip a written page or a photo and a number of clear plastic pages that can hold two photos each. They are sold by big box office supply companies, and ones with six to 24 pages sell for about $5 to $12.

I print the photos for a small display book as 9x6 images on letter size photo print paper. The large white borders work well to frame the images and oddly add an intimacy and importance to the images. Now the viewer has to look into the image closely to see its detail.

However, in either situation, big prints or small, I think hard copy, great prints, make a difference and have far more impact that screen images any day.

Photos & text © 2011 Steve Meltzer