Archive for September, 2009

My photography instructor, as old man in his mid fifty once said to his class, “Always and only put your best picture in your portfolio.”

 This was some ten years back, at the age of manual photography, in which what he meant with portfolio is a large book of your best taken picture bounded and displayed protected with plastic  sheet.

 Today, such practice is indeed very rare. And in the age of facebook and twitter where people can  easily and conveniently log into rgeir account and upload dozens if not hundreds of picture to the virtual portfolio book, and literally gave to friends, family and even in many case, total strangers, access to this wealth of art collection.

 But as the ease improve and more and more people are drawn to this new hobby of photography, it’s noticeable that we’ve have become looser in terms of guarding the quality – not just in terms of the picture self- but also in showing it to the people showcase perspective.

 It has been more often that not, as I witnessed, collection of pictures, some goof, some very good and some are plain rubbish, grouped together. And while this practice is understandable, it would be much much more pleasant experience, for anyone, and I said anyone, who observed the album, if only to looked at the best taken pictures that have been carefully selected, by the photographer.

 This bring the discussion back to the first point mentioned early, that the reason why my elderly instructor so stringently recommend such discipline is not just to ensure that the readers perceived you as a versatile photographer, but also to ensure that anyone that has the opportunity to look at the portfolio book, will look at the eye spoiling experience instead of some amateur scratch book.

 More importantly perhaps, the well sorted portfolio will send the message that you want ti be received by the audience, whatever the messages are. And these are something that people tend to forget,

 As for me, ever since I heard the advice I’ve been a constant if not fanatics in its implementation. As in Indonesian proverbs “Nila setetes rusak susu sebelanga” don’t let a small drop of bad things ruin a pile of good stuffs.