{"id":2653,"date":"2014-06-16T11:59:49","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=2653"},"modified":"2018-12-28T16:30:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T21:30:14","slug":"portfolio-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=2653","title":{"rendered":"Portfolio Workshop January 28th, 2019!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last Portfolio Workshop went really well. Why not join us\u00a0 for the next one? We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, and we’re getting quite good at it! We’ll meet on January 28th at 6:30pm at my studio in Downtown Indianapolis. Read on for more details.
\n<\/span><\/span>Making photographs might be a solitary experience, but as soon as you\u2019ve made a photograph you\u2019ll want to share it. As you gain experience as a photographer you\u2019ll want to share your photographs more broadly, beyond friends and acquaintance. Of course you\u2019ll be concerned about how other people perceive your work, or at least I hope you will. If you want to present your images to galleries or contests or businesses it\u2019s important to learn how other people see your work. Frankly it\u2019s quite difficult to learn this on your own. I\u2019ve learned this for myself. When I look at my shots I remember the circumstances of the shoot, and this always colors my perception of the shot.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mosaic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The above shot is a good example I made this shot for a hotel in Beverly Hills. The owners of the hotel and the designer weren\u2019t ready for the shoot and there were other problems. So, while the shot is good, I didn\u2019t put it on my website for quite a while because I remembered the problems when I looked at the shot. So choosing photographs to show is very difficult. When I do a shoot I have certain reasons for the shots, the reasons may be commercial, personal or something else. Because the first time I edit the shots the choices are based on the reasons I did the shoot. I sometimes miss a shot that has other possibilities. This is why I go back to older shots and review them again. That even happened with this shot:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"What?\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The purpose of the Portfolio Workshop is to help you develop skills for editing and presenting your shots. There are different ways to present your portfolio, and presentation is important. I\u2019ve seen a lot of people who only have digital versions of their portfolios. While a digital portfolio is good, I think you might also want a print portfolio; for one thing it helps you sell prints. More important you want to show various ways of presenting images to your client: digital, website print and more. These tools may be important to a commercial client. For instance I had a high end landscaping client that showed very large prints to potential buyers. He told me that he was going to be landscaping a couple of acres of land and you just couldn\u2019t present that with a 4X6 inch print. Of course he knew he needed really good photographs if he was going to show prints that big. I have a 16X20 inch portfolio that I present to architecture clients; it\u2019s been quite successful. I have a couple of portfolios on my tablet and even a few pdf portfolios my clients can see on line: www.siskinphoto.com\/aportrait.pdf<\/a> and www.siskinphoto.com\/aarch.pdf<\/a>. In the workshop we\u2019ll be talking about the most effective ways of sharing our work. We\u2019ll also talk about how to get people to look at our work. The shot below is in my16X20 portfolio.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot more to this workshop than listening to me pontificate about someone else\u2019s photographs. This is a small group and everyone is encouraged to participate. The idea is to see how several different people react to your images. One object of this workshop is to develop a supportive environment where you can get detailed feedback about your images. Another object is to develop everybody\u2019s skill communicating about images. This is always challenging to photographers because few photographers have a background in design. When you can better describe why an image works you\u2019ll also create better skills designing and building images. Of course we\u2019ll also share technical information about making images, but, in this sort of workshop, technology is secondary to developing our design skills.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m asking participants to bring two images to each meeting. This way everyone will get a chance to have an image reviewed and to comment on other people\u2019s images. I\u2019m sure there are people who would like to have just their portfolio reviewed rather than be part of this workshop. I certainly do portfolio reviews, but they cost more than $20. A portfolio review is static, this workshop will help you develop your skills as a photographer over time and build great portfolios. The Portfolio Workshop is a live experience. It meets once a month in my Indianapolis Studio.
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You can start attending this workshop with just a few images. We meet once a month so you’ll have the opportunity to create more images for your portfolio and bring them to the workshop. You can use the workshop experience to help you decide what kind of a portfolio to develop, or you can develop several portfolios at one time. I\u2019m always working on several sorts of images at the same time. I encourage everyone to participate, by bringing images and by giving feedback to the other participants. Sign up at the Workshop Page<\/a> on my site. Please join in!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You can get my books through amazon or other booksellers.<\/span><\/span>
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