To me, I have always thought that portfolio making is like working on a puzzle, like a jigsaw. It is the skill in finding simplicity in the complexity.
Editing images individually is fine, and that is pretty much how I begin all my images. To a point. But once I start to collate the images into a body of work, I start to see relationships, themes emerge, that influence and instruct me in how to proceed with new edits, or to go back to existing edits to re-tune.
In a week’s time I will begin my portfolio development class. Over the space of four weekly sessions, you will see a condensed version of all the decisions I make whilst editing my work to sit together as a cohesive body.
I thought, how best to teach putting a portfolio together? And the answer came one day on a telephone call with a friend when she asked me ‘have you edited any of your work from that Bolivia trip we did in 2019?’. A light-bulb moment. I realised the best way to convey what I go through whilst editing, is to record myself as I put a portfolio together.
In the video series I’m about to publish, the work was unedited as I started out. I did not know how the work would end up, and this in my view was an ideal situation. Because I wanted the process to be as honest as possible. To show all the trials and tribulations, all the decisions I made, where I got stuck, and where I got set free again to continue.
I am hoping it will be very instructive to those who’ve signed up, as I spare no difficult decision. You see me thrive and also falter at times as I reach difficult decisions in how best to make the work sit together.