Portfolio review

As part of Unit 303 I have had my portfolio reviewed by professional photographer Dinu Li. He and I had a one on one tutorial in which we looked through my ongoing digital portfolio and then discussed the work I was doing at the time (Vermeer brief).

We first looked at some of the work I had in my portfolio, which was a short series from my second year.

He commented on how the images need to flow more as a series, that firstly they needed to be all the same size within the portfolio so as to have consistency, and secondly that they should have a common theme running through them, so as not to look like a random set of photographs. I agree that they should all be the same size, and initially I thought that they did have a common theme running through them, with the woman in the gown, however on further reflection I now agree with Dinu, as they don’t seem to go anywhere as a series, and there isn’t really a narrative within them. I have since chosen to take them out of my portfolio.

From there we moved on to looking at the Vermeer brief which I was working on at the time, and discussed two of my images from it.

Looking at them he stated that they had some potential and that my idea of showing part of a greater narrative was interesting, however I needed to expand on this idea, and improve my technical skills such as my lighting. I think that this is a fair point on the images, and I agree that the lighting isn’t quite correct, but I am slightly unsure as to what he meant by expanding on my ideas.

What was interesting is that he seemed more fascinated with some other images for the Vermeer brief that I had chosen not to use.

He told me that he particularly liked the composition within these images, and that the use of negative space worked very well. He thought that I could really go somewhere with them if I simply thought a little more about what was going on in the frame. He picked up on that I was trying to show a bizarre situation, something that was part of a bigger narrative, and he offered suggestions such as having boxes piled as high as the roof, and having the person looking around bewildered.

Even though I was still planning not to go on with those images, it was really useful to get some constructive and positive criticism back from Dinu. Just to know that my ideas were interesting and that I had used composition and negative space to good effect was very reassuring.