Tips for submitting your freelance portfolio to photo editors

Looking for freelance work and sending a CD portfolio to potential employers?

National Post is a newspaper with very small photo staff and relies heavily on freelancers. On almost daily basis we receive freelance portfolios on CDs. As associate photo editor in the paper, I was exposed to many of those portfolios and, on more than a few occasions I admired the courage of photographers competing for work in a newspaper with wedding picture portfolios or family pictures. Here are some of the things to have in mind when putting together a photojournalistic portfolio:

1. Inform yourself about the type of the publication you are sending your CD to. Buy a few issues, or browse them in the library, but pay attention to what kind of pictures and what styles are used. While self-confidence is certainly a good thing to have, be realistic when judging whether your skills can produce the quality of photography the publication uses. If needed, try to get an opinion of someone you can trust to be realistic.

2. Now that your friends assured you that you are better than those guys who already work for the paper, put together about 20 to 30 of your best photos which fit the profile of the publication. For example, the Post is heavy user of nicely lit business portraits, so we expect to see a variety of such pictures in a portfolio. Some other newspapers use more news photos or features, so assemble your work accordingly. However, do not send ONLY one kind of photos. Approximately one third of the selection should showcase the publication-style photos. Remaining two thirds should contain your best work, showing versatility and skill.

3. Now that you have a selection of pictures ready to send, you need to put them on a CD. Some photographers include a slide show program, some send photos as .eps files (for reason beyond my comprehension). Photo editors are usually too busy or too impatient to go through the process of learning how to use another application or converting and decompressing oversized files. Therefore, keep it small and keep it simple. You are sending a CD, that means your pictures will be viewed on a computer screen. Keep the files at 72dpi, that is enough resolution for the screen. Save them as jpeg - that is the most common format which can be viewed in any application.

Many photographers are trying to impress by using fancy slide-show programs, or even sending slide shows as movies. It could be a big mistake not to give the editor an option to pause on some photos. To my experience, the best presentation is a simple, self-contained web gallery on a CD. Always include captions with your photos. Adobe Photoshop and many other photo manipulating software can create html (or web) pages with caption extracted from IPTC ("file info") data of the photograph. Such portfolio is simple, clear and can be viewed on any computer platform in any web browser. Make sure to mark your "index" or start page file clearly. Something like "start_here.html" is good.

4. The last thing - make sure to include all your contact information. Preferably, write or print them on the label of your CD.

For more tips on interviewing with photo editors, please check previous post.