#014: Building your best portfolio

🐎One time, I won a horse in a raffle.

Well, it wasn’t technically me. It was my dad. He won it, but he put my name on the raffle ticket at the bank. So I got the horse. I was six. 

The horse’s name was Oscar, and he was a complete grouch. He is the only horse that’s ever kicked me. Joke’s on him, though: I have a car, I don’t even need a horse.

⚙️You’ll see a few changes today:

1️⃣New look and feel: I made the move over to Substack, and it’ll make more sense momentarily.

2️⃣New structure: I’m trying to put the most valuable things for you up front. I get it, you’re busy, mate.

3️⃣Also, today is the start of a paid subscriber section: The move to Substack is a result of that. I always wanted to figure out how to launch a premium tier, but decided to take a few months to get a feel for what it could look like. Going forward, at the bottom of each issue, there’ll be a section that’s subscriber-only. What you’re used to doesn’t go away. If you never want to pay, you don’t have to give me a dime, ever. But for those of you that are interested, there’ll be a few extra things you’ll get, and ultimately my goal is to offer you enough value that you feel like you’re getting a lot more than your money’s worth.

🎆Do you struggle with keeping your portfolio up to date?

I did for a long time too, but I finally figured out a process that works for me. Today,I’m going to break down my workflow.

But before I do: I sometimes hear that portfolios are dead, and that your social feed is the new portfolio. I think there is some truth to this, because as visual artists it’s harder to just rely solely on our portfolio than ever before. The social feed, in some ways, is just as important.

But despite that, my stance is the portfolio is not dead, it’s still necessary, and it can be a competitive advantage if done right.

🔁So here’s the core parts of how I keep mine up to date:

1️⃣Make it the final step after any meaningful test or project you shoot. Once you’ve delivered the work to the client, or you’ve sent back photos to the model you were testing with, you’re not done. You gotta get it in your book, so I recommend whatever your productivity system is (paper to-do list, Notion, whatever) you haven’t completely “done” this project until it’s in your portfolio.

2️⃣Batch work on a time horizon that works for you. I try to take 1-2 hours one Sunday every month to update my portfolio. Everybody’s frequency is gonna be different. Once a quarter may be right for you. Sometimes, it may take the full time. Sometimes, I wasn’t that busy the prior month, and it’s only 15 minutes.

3️⃣Put yourself in the viewer’s shoes: Are most people going to want to see a bunch of closeup Chevelle shots from a recent photo shoot you did that had an old car in it? Maybe, maybe not. Think through who your audience is.

4️⃣Bonus tip: Do less. I am an over-sharer. This is a problem. Right now, I know I need to cut about 25% of the work that’s in my portfolio. Maybe more. But it’s hard, it hurts, I worked hard to shoot those images back in 2019. But imagine your photographer friend wanted to show you a project they shot, how many images do you want to scroll through? Is it twenty, thirty, fifty images? Probably not. I bet it’s ten or so. Knowing that, where can you eliminate the unnecessary, trim the fat, and thereby let your strongest stuff shine through?

🧱Here’s how it breaks down, visually:

Take it from me: You don’t want to miss an opportunity because somebody looks at your portfolio and they don’t see one of the best things you’ve ever shot because you didn’t put it on your site. You never know who’s out there.

Up next week: Breaking down several photographer’s portfolios that I take inspiration from.

📈PART TWO: TRACKING MY PROGRESS

📸 Fig. 1: this week’s stills (tips are at the back of each carousel in IG)

🎬 fig. 2: this week’s videos

1/1: 2025 Creative Vision, Day 1/7 IG | TT1/2: Lighting Tutorial #12 (repost) IG | TT1/2: 2025 Creative Vision, Day 2/7 IG | TT1/3: Lighting Tutorial #4 (repost) IG | TT1/3: 2025 Creative Vision, Day 3/7 IG | TT1/4: Lighting Tutorial #10 (repost) IG | TT1/4: 2025 Creative Vision, Day 4/7 IG | TT1/5: Studio background tutorial (repost) IG 1/5: 2025 Creative Vision, Day 5/7 IG 

🔬 fig. 3: key learnings + experiments this week

Reposting my best videos: Confirmed - It totally works. I wondered if, because there’s a bunch of people who weren’t around when I posted something that really hit, would it hit again? Resounding yes. I waited 90+ days on a few videos and then put them up again. They’re doing great.

Video explainer in an image carousel: Didn’t work at all. May not even mess with this in the future.

📈fig. 4: audience growth

Instagram: 10,252 followers, +756 (+8%) vs. last weekTikTok: 1210 followers, +120 (+11%) vs. last weekNewsletter: 1003 subscribers, +62 (+7%) vs. last week

📍Free mood board #07, office editorial: LINK🆓Five free Lightroom presets: LINK🛠️All the cameras + flashes I use: LINK🤝1:1 consult calls: LINK

Starting next week, the bottom of each issue is going to be for paid subscribers. Won’t change anything above. No need for you to sign up yet because I haven’t proven it, but to set the stage my vision is for it to include 3 things:

1️⃣A weekly trends report that helps you see something that’s clicking in social, content, art direction, etc. I want to be a resource to you.

2️⃣A biweekly video podcast that’ll function like an extended version of my most popular short form videos where I’ll go over a past shoot and break down lighting, art direction, styling, camera settings, etc. I am nervous about these but psyched to get them going. Will be up and running in Q1 ‘25.

3️⃣A subscriber chat built right into Substack web or mobile app. I think it’ll be fun to talk shop with anyone who wants to join.

If you think you’re gonna wanna know more about it, here’s more details.

Okay, that’s it. Welcome to 2025, thank you for reading, and everybody have a good start to their year.

Garrett