5 tips for creating an attractive photography portfolio
Your digital photography portfolio is your letter of introduction to the world and it is essential that you know how to take care of it and review it from time to time so that users can really appreciate the potential of your image gallery at the moment.
When it comes to attracting clients through your website, your photography portfolio is going to play an essential role because after they know what your style is like and what kind of photography services you offer, your online portfolio will be the next thing that visitors to your photography website will look at. That’s why today we want to share with you a detailed guide with 5 tips to make your portfolio just what your visitors need to see in order to choose you as their photographer of reference.
Turn visitors into clients thanks to your photography portfolio.
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What are the requirements for a good photography portfolio?
Before we start talking about the elements that a professional photography portfolio should have, it is important to clarify what a portfolio of images is, because, although it may seem obvious, there are times when a photographer starts uploading images to his web galleries, he slightly forgets the purpose of this powerful tool for attracting clients.
A photographic portfolio is a careful selection of current images that must perfectly represent the photographer’s style and aesthetics.
When displaying your online portfolio on your website, it is important that you take into account a number of aspects so that the content you include in your image galleries helps you to showcase your full potential as a photographer.
Sometimes there is a misconception that the more photos you show in your online portfolio, the more options you will have to attract the attention of a potential client. But the truth is that a gallery with too many photos, or even complete sessions, can have exactly the opposite effect on your potential clients.
Another aspect that you have to take into account when selecting the images for your galleries is the needs of your clients. For example, if you are a children’s photographer who does studio and outdoor sessions and you know that most of your clients always ask you to do a family photo shoot outdoors, it is ideal that you show and highlight just that type of images in the galleries of your photography website.
5 tips for creating a top image portfolio
We know that your images convey a very particular style, that is why, when creating a photography portfolio, it is very important that you pay special attention when selecting the images for your photography website.
The idea is that you choose only the best photos. The ones that you know are extraordinary, that truly reflect your style and that will leave users speechless when they see them in full size on your website.
And if you haven’t updated your website’s image portfolio in a while, it’s time to do so. Because with the passing of time, new trends and your experience, it is totally logical that your online portfolio changes and acquires certain special touches that are important to be reflected on your website.
When creating a photographic portfolio, it is normal that you want to include most of your images. We know that you are very proud of each one of them, but you must take into account that the visitors that come to your website will not spend too much time looking at your image gallery, so the pictures have to be very impressive.
The truth is that on average you will only have about 10 seconds to attract the attention of your visitors, so it is very important that you spend some time selecting the images you are going to show on your website.
Now let’s look at 5 tips you can follow to make your image portfolio flawless.
1# Select the photos for your online portfolio
As we have already recommended in this article, visitors spend very little time on the Internet, so making a select and limited selection of photographs will make them pay more attention to your image galleries than if you place hundreds of photos.
Focus on this latest photo campaign, make a selection of no more than 25 images and display them in your online gallery.
If you make several types of reports, even if they are related, for example: newborn, pregnancy, infant and baby, try to create a sub-gallery for each of your reports, this way visitors will be able to find the information they are looking for more quickly and will be much more impressed by your portfolio.
2# Create more spectacular photos for your gallery
Sometimes, there are a series of photographs that photographers would like to have in their portfolio but have not had the opportunity to take them with their clients. If this is your case, don’t hesitate, find some friends, or even offer a photo shoot at a special price and recreate the situation you would like to have in your photography portfolio. If you do this, in addition to having the photos you dreamed of, you will have the opportunity to practice the situation so that in future photo shoots it will be easier.
3# Make the images in your portfolio tell a story
For example, if you are a wedding photographer and you have made a careful selection of photographs for your digital portfolio, it is important that the bride and groom visualise the images in the order in which they will take place at their wedding. This way, you will make them want to see more photos and spend more time viewing your portfolio.
Once you have all your image galleries created, it is important that you give them visibility, for this you can create several blog articles where you can link some of your galleries.
You can also create a short post on your social media and add a link to your portfolio and if you create a services page or send clients a dossier, remember to add a link to your online portfolio.
5# Plan your next image gallery review
An important step that you should not neglect is to schedule once or twice a year a review of your image galleries, this is a very important task if you want to have a portfolio with your best images always updated and up to date.
This task, if you know how to schedule it, will not take up too much of your time. As an idea, after editing each session you can select the images you like the most in a folder. Then you will only have to review a single folder of images to choose the most significant ones for your digital photography portfolio.
Arcadina helps you create unique image galleries
As we have already mentioned, it is logical that your online portfolio is constantly changing because over the years, you have been refining your technique and the images you took some time ago are no longer the same as the ones you take now. For this reason you should update your photography portfolio constantly.
One of the questions you should ask yourself is: “How can I make a practical, beautiful and functional online portfolio?
We know you’re not a web programmer, that’s another story. That’s why, when creating an image portfolio with Arcadina, you will be able to do it in just a few minutes, quickly and easily, with a professional result and without errors or slow loading times.
In your Panel you will find a section exclusively dedicated to your image gallery, where you can create new galleries or upload more updated photos in just a few minutes. In addition to creating galleries and uploading images efficiently, in the Arcadina control panel you will be able to customise this section of your website as much as you want.
- You can activate or deactivate the random display of images as you wish.
- It will allow you to customise the number of rows, photos per row and the type of borders.
- You will have a system to automatically switch the images to projection mode.
- You will have the option to automatically add a watermark to your photos.
- You can activate music for each gallery, to give them a more personal touch.
- And many more options.
Here is a compilation of articles on how to set up your photography portfolio from our help section.
Create galleries and sub-galleries to organise the different photo shoots
When it comes to displaying your photography portfolio on your photographer website, take advantage of all the tools we put at your disposal to make your work look as good as possible. The days of showing your portfolio on paper are over. Now 95% of your clients, at least in the first contact, will discover your portfolio of images through the Internet.
As we have already mentioned, ideally you should organise your photos by type of session or theme, so that each group of clients can find a space on your website where they can enjoy the part of your photography portfolio that interests them at the moment.
For this reason, in Arcadina we offer you galleries where your visitors will be able to enjoy your photographs online at a size never seen before.
Did you know that on your photography blog you can also upload a small gallery of images? A very interesting option for articles where you explain a day’s session with you.
And now you can also choose which images you want to be displayed in the mobile version of your web galleries.
>> Arcadina Help: Galleries in mobile version
Choose a gallery design that matches the style of your images
When updating your portfolio with us you will also have the opportunity to change the design of the gallery itself. This way, depending on the type of sessions you do or how you want your clients’ experience to be when viewing your photos on the web, you will have the possibility to use different layouts.
We currently have 4 active designs for your online portfolio that you can try and change whenever you want. In the following article we present them to you.
>> Discover the photo and video galleries Pages, Slideshow, Infinite and Carousel
And in case you didn’t know, in our galleries you will also be able to include an Instagram gallery where visitors will be able to see all the images you upload to this social network without leaving your website.
Attract more clients with your online photography portfolio
As you can see, it is important that your photography portfolio is constantly evolving on your website. With Arcadina you have the possibility to upload your photos directly from Lightroom, show them at full size, change the gallery design whenever you want, connect your galleries with your social networks and many more really interesting options.
If you have not yet started with Arcadina, we encourage you to try our Web plan for 14 days, completely free of charge.
Today we want to share with you the interview we did with photographer Omar Huerta.
>> “My website helps me to show a professional image”, Omar Huerta
And finally, we’d like to ask you a question: How long has it been since you last checked your image gallery? We’ll read you in the comments.
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