Your portfolio is not your resume, it is your COVER LETTER. It shows who you are and what you would bring to the party. There is no need to showcase every image you have ever taken. Show only the best, and show the images that project boldly, “this is who I am, this is what I do!
Nothing excites me more than to view any photographer's work. As a photographer yourself you understand what it's like to use your creative muscle and shoot anything. You make not necessarily agree with that photographer's aesthetic or their approach to a particular subject matter but you at least value what they've put out into the world. I know I do.Â
My questioning comes more into play when a photographer shares too much of anything. There should be as much deliberation put into what you shoot as much as what you publish anywhere. "Show only the best" says Andrea Stern from SternRep which is an international boutique agency representing talented commercial photographers.
It completely drives me crazy when I see a photographer publish 15 equivalent images from a shoot as if they're doing us a favor in attempting to display everything when in reality what I'm doing as a viewer is attempting to visually eliminate the bad ones and find the good ones. I feel as if I'm doing their work in editing. "There's no need to showcase every image you have ever taken" is the recurrent theme in my head while I edit down anything I've shot because in the end I rather have 6 amazing images to share than 15 mediocre ones.Â