Your Galleries in Photography: Less is MORE

by Skip Cohen

It's not a new topic for me to share, but it's Marketing Monday and we're just a few weeks ahead of seasonality ramping up for 2024. The kids are back in school, and Mom has a little time on her hands to consider an updated family portrait. Plus, it's time to be thinking about what to get Grandma for the holidays, and there's little that beats a new family portrait.

The challenge is your online galleries and whether they're representative of your very best work. Online galleries continue to be one of the most procrastinated topics when it comes to cleaning them up. If it's not a "WOW" print, then DON'T show it! 

Over ten years ago, Scott Bourne published a post about a way to test your portfolio (and it works for online galleries) – "Look in the middle of the book and see if the quality is representative of your first images." It's such an easy thing to do, but it deserves a little expansion on the concept.

LESS IS MORE! I'm tired of photographers making excuses to clients, "This is just the way it looks on my site. The real image in the album was stunning!"  

While many of your images might be perfect, that's not what anybody is looking for if they're considering hiring you!  Here are a few suggestions to give your galleries more impact:
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• You know what makes a great image. If it looks like anybody's Uncle Harry could get the shot, don't share it.
• Don't mix up specialties. Stay with your core business focus. 
• Don't share too many images. You really don't need more than a dozen outstanding photographs to make your point.
• If you're a wedding photographer, show an album - it's not just about the images, but your skills as a storyteller.
  
• If you're going beyond two specialties in your galleries, for example, tabletop, architectural, and editorial portraits, then break them up into separate sections.  You've got the same challenge with your website. If your areas of expertise are too far apart, you might need to consider two different websites. An account exec from an ad agency will not go through your galleries with the same eyes as the mother of a bride.
• Quality – Quality – Quality!  You need quality in every image as well as in the presentation style.  Showing a potential client a gallery that has all the class and style of a seventh-grade book report isn't going to land a job for you! Again, you're being judged on the portfolio's contents.

Just remember the purpose of the photographs in your galleries – they might be inanimate objects, but they're your representatives! They're your agents working to get you hired, and as crass as it may sound, the bait to get a viewer to look at more of your website! Don't compromise on the images. Don't compromise on your message! Most importantly, make your work habit-forming so the viewer can't stop looking and sharing.