The summer months are upon us and nothing radiates warmth quite like a beautiful sunset. I’ve been pretty busy since my last post with a lot of time spent writing and editing images with a focus on updating my “100 Images.” These are a portfolio of my 100 best images rendered as fully ready print files. Going through this exercise is a lot of work, but worth it if you ever plan on printing your images for galleries, competitions or sale.
My process goes something like this. I never go anywhere without my camera. The batteries are always charged and I double check to make sure I have plenty of room on my SD cards. I always have enough SD card memory capacity so that I won’t have to delete any images until they have been copied to my 4 TB Lacie Rugged portable hard drive and my home system. I always have these two back ups before I delete any images or reformat my SD cards. If I’m on a long trip and won’t be home for several weeks, I will plan to have sufficient memory with me and this is crucial. Memory cards fail and hard drives fail, I’ve had it happen to me.
At the end of each day, I sit down at my MacBook and create a folder on my external hard drive titled with date, subject and location. Then all the images of the day are copied onto the external hard drive. Next I import previews of these images into Lightroom with most of the necessary tags like location, month, year, season, subject and save the more specific tags for subsequent editing. I don’t store all my raw images on my computer hard drive because there is nowhere near enough hard disc space on the internal hard drive.
Now that I have all the previews in Lightroom I make a first pass. Problem images are immediately put into the rejected file by rating them with “X”. Images that look good and warrant further editing are color coded and put into my “green file”. After all the images have been sorted I go back into the green file and see if any stand out and these will be further sorted and edited. It may take several passes to pick the one or two images that will make it to the contact print stage.
I feel it’s important to standardize on a specific printer and paper. This creates consistency in the process, every printer and paper mixes things up and renders differently. I my case I use an Epson printer and Epson Exhibition Fiber paper. I have specific profiles for each. When images have been edited to the point where they are considered candidates for printing or inclusion in my portfolio it is time to make contact prints. Remember, this is done on the same paper as the final print.
After printing, the paper is allowed to dry down for at least three days so the dyes can cure. Images may look pretty good on a screen but not hold up as prints and will be weeded out. The goal is to create images that print well and honestly you know it when you see it, they pop with life, it’s very obvious. A strong image as a strong print is the most satisfying thing I can image as a photographer. No image will make it into my portfolio if it doesn’t stand on it’s own as a physical print.
Now that I have a set of print ready images, the difficult process of curation begins. I have help curating my images, it’s a very difficult thing to curate your own work, because you can develop emotional attachments and not look at the images objectively. It takes years of experience and many thousands of images from many different sources to develop a discerning eye. Having a fresh set of objective eyes is a great tool.
After you have your folder of portfolio quality images, sit back and look through it. One of the really interesting benefits of creating your portfolio, especially if it contains a large number of images is it shows you what kind of photographer you are. It shows you your body of work, where you are and perhaps provides a sense of direction.
The process of curation never ends. New images will make it in and older images will be moved out. The important thing is to keep photographing.
This is an absolutely gorgeous shot!
Thank you!