If it hasn’t already, your website will become more important than your printed portfolio. That’s what APhotoFolio is all about.
Portfolios have migrated online so your website must be treated as something other than storage for outdated imagery. Often an agency will award a job without calling in a book. For example, when an AD sends me a layout, we discuss style, emotional tone and production values. I will send the AD a number of websites showcasing the work of the photographers best suited for the job. Once we have settled on a recommendation (and know that the photographer is interested and available), the appropriate imagery is culled from the photographer’s site and presented to the client in a deck for their approval. Sometimes the book is called in, sometimes it isn’t.
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My only disagreement with this post is is the statement “your website will become more important than your printed portfolio”
From my experience, this trend started TEN years ago.
Example: Two equally talented photographers are competing for an ad agency assignment. One has a good print book but doesn’t have a fully-featured web site that allows on the fly updating.
The other has fully-featured web site but has no print book. The speed at which the agency has to vet, present, revise layouts, and get client input on photographer choices, makes one’s web site THE biggest tool that allows the photographer to meet the time-stressed buyers needs for appropriate content. Without the ability to present tailored content to the buyer (sometimes within an hour!) the photographer with the print book and a hard to update web site has their hands virtually tied behind their back.
That’s why I’ve been telling every photographer who comes to me for marketing/sales
advice that the #1 thing they MUST have–if they hope to get work from a top
ad agencies–is to have a web site they can FREQUENTLY update with fresh content
and a site that has the features such as deep linking that will allow an art buyer to forward specific images to their team and/or their client (e.g.URLs tied to specific images) and/or the ability to create customized PDF galleries).
All-Flash sites that a photographer can’t update at a moment’s notice to meet a potential client’s needs, leave that photographer at a severe disadvantage during the photography vetting process.
I am very grateful that there are companies like APhotoFolio and LiveBooks that really “get it.” They’re the ones that are truly serving both the photographers and the art buyers work flow needs.
Rob,
I’d like to combine my website with the presentation I give in face-to-face meetings. It would look so slick to be able to open my laptop and show a bespoke gallery to a client through an offline interface that matches my site, and then be able to leave them with a link to email around to their colleagues.
Is this something that’s possible?
@Owen,
Not really because the site is flash. Honestly tho I think you want to simply present the images fullscreen on a laptop with zero distraction. Any simple slideshow software can do that. Fullscreen always looks better.