Introducing Portfolio Reviews

Hello everyone, thanks so much for checking out my newest blog post. Today I want to talk a bit about portfolio reviews, something I have had a lot of people ask about over the past year or so.

I have never really performed portfolio reviews officially. I’ve always been happy to take a look at a photo or two and offer constructive input, but I find myself being asked more and more about what I think or what would I do different. I feel like given the current situation with COVID-19, and how things are slow in our gallery and my classes, then it is the right time to formalize the offering and kick it off.

So what is it? Some people are well aware of what portfolio reviews are, but some are not. In general a portfolio review from me can cover many areas. Like most I will look at photos that the individual provides, which normally are ones that they believe are their cream of the crop, and I will provide as valuable and constructive feedback as possible. This might be lighting or composition considerations, speaking about balance and distractions. It might entail some discussion about post processing or different shooting options and settings. The goal is for the individual to get an idea of where they can grow, what can get them to the next level.

Why are they important? Simply enough, social media is not a good litmus test to your photos and that is where most aspiring photographers or hobbyists get feedback. If you throw a photo out there and you get 100 likes, that is great, but these are from every day users, usually your friends, who have no idea what makes a photo good or great. Professional critiquing is really the only way to get an idea.

With the photos it is pretty straight forward, but I am doing more in my portfolio reviews. I want to also help aspiring photographers get their photos to a level of marketability. Whether they are portraits, landscapes or whatever, there are things to think about, ways to market that I can help with. I can look at your business workflow and find some areas that you may want to improve upon. Think about it as photography business consulting.

I think this service can be very valuable to a large number of people. Hobbyists who want to perfect their craft and take really great photos (perhaps they want to win some competitions), aspiring professionals who really want to differentiate themselves and show that they are not just another one of the thousands of photographers out there, or already professionals that just want to get another opinion on what they are doing and another set of eyes looking at their work and business workflows. I have had many years in this industry and I shoot pretty much everything in one aspect or another. I have a very strong information technology background that lends itself perfectly to helping you. Would you like for me to help you?

I am launching my portfolios in an hourly basis. $100 for an hour and $180 for two hours. I would expect that we could get through 10-12 photos per hour to help you gauge the time you might want. We have the product in our E-Commerce site for our gallery, Turnmeyer Galleries, and you can find it here.

Once you purchase your review I’ll send you an email and we can converse to figure out what you want to get out of it and schedule the review. I’ll ask that you send me a link to the photos or upload them to an online shared folder (which I’ll provide) so that I can look them over and gets some thoughts together prior to our discussion.

I hope the community finds this valuable and the many individuals that have asked if I do this service take advantage of it.

Look for more blog posts to be coming out at least weekly beginning now.

Stay safe out there and keep that social distancing and sanitation up. We will get through this, but our world will be very different. In many good ways.

Scott

Gear Review: KUVRD Universal Lens Cap

Evening everyone, thanks for checking out my blog. I’m going to start doing more gear reviews and such, so I wanted to get started with probably my favorite tool in my bag right now.

Have you ever lost your lens cap? Have you had your lens cap get knocked off in your bag or if you hit it just the right way when hiking? All of these have happened to me.

When I’m out doing my landscape shots, my wife and I are trekking everyone. Rocks, boulders, hiking, sea spray, sand, dust, you name it, we’ve seen it. I found these awesome universal lens caps a couple of months back and decided to try one.

Here is my Sony A7Riii with my Sony 10-18mm with it on. My landscape setup.

There are a few out there, but I went with the KUVRD Universal Lens Cap. They claim it’ll fit 99% of DSLR lenses and has a limited lifetime warranty. This thing is silicone and from what I’ve seen the best lens cap out there. It’s water, sand, dirt, whatever resistant, and is even shock absorbent when you are banging around. In fact, you can take a lens that is not on your camera and put one on each side for a great lens protection in your bag.

You simply slide it over your lens. The silicone allows it to expand onto different sizes without a problem. If you get some dirt in it, simply rinse it off. It’s great and I need to get more.

You can find them on Amazon really easily and they come in packs from 1 up to 10. Pricing is around $24.99 for 1 and you get price breaks the larger the pack you buy. Here is a link to them on Amazon.

Thanks for checking out my blog. Don’t forget while you are here to visit my workshops and classes section for all of my upcoming events. Also my store has a ton of items available.