Are my portfolio images solid?

[Sauk]

Would you consider these good images? Are they good enough to show off my work?

http://www.matthewsauk.com/

Just trying to show off some of the previous years images that show my abilities.

[Binning]

The shots are all very good technically. There are a few where the composition is off a little bit, but only a few of the shots. Don't be afraid to pair it down to those with the best composition and seperate them into categories by sport. Good work!

[Sauk]

Binning,

Can you expand on that a bit (if you want to pm me that is cool as well)


Thanks for taking the time to look and critique

[airfrogusmc]

I'd say good enough. The one of the child playing soccer is a good image but doesn't seem to fit with the rest.

[Sauk]

yeah I was trying to throw in my youth stuff, but I think in the end I will just not use it.

[cosworth]

You basketball is pretty solid. Football the player blocking and composition will come with time. It's all timing.

The girl is odd shot out. Remove. You need to have player names and teams under all the shots with final scores. Keep it up and you could find yourself a member on sportsshooter.

[airfrogusmc]

I think you've been able to capture action very well. You seem to have a knack for it. Good luck...

[Sauk]

You basketball is pretty solid. Football the player blocking and composition will come with time. It's all timing.

The girl is odd shot out. Remove. You need to have player names and teams under all the shots with final scores. Keep it up and you could find yourself a member on sportsshooter.

cosworth,

That is my ultimate goal as you probably know. The captions are coming but it is kinda hard with the wife and kids wanting attention on Sunday lol

The girl is now out, and the captions are slowly coming as I get time to write them and research who the kids were at the time of the capture.

The one where the kid broke through the hole I cropped that one very tight as you can see. Only thing near him were a lineman that was behind him. It was a big hole lol

Thanks for the advice!

[Sauk]

ok I added a few more football shots (youth). Still working on the captions though should have those done by weds.

[trantz]

in the 3rd pic, there is too much of 57 in the image, over shadows the QB.
that is all

[MJPhotos24]

J/W, who are you showing it too? 27 shots in a portfolio is overkill to most, I think the average is 8-10 on most submission guidelines I've seen or ever had to do.

As for captions, remember it's Joe Schmoe (23)...even if he's the only Schmoe in the photo. L/R/Middle/top/bottom/holding trohpy/etc. is for shots that you can't see a number.

[Sauk]

MJPhotos24,

Did not know that for captions. I read the sports shooter article on that I guess I missed that part. Thanks for the information (good to know!)

So I need to cut it down to 8 to 10. Can you PM me what 8 you believe are the best if you ever have time?


trantz,

I love that photo because i used to play qb and when you see that guy coming you know it is going to hurt :) lol I love the look of a defensive player bearing down on a qb :)

[Croasdail]

I hate when these questions are in the context of sportsshooter applications. As all ready mentioned, way to many shots here. These need to be best of the best. Honestly, and I don't mean this to sound harsh, but if these are your stand out shots, I would wonder what your everyday shots look like. For that reason, yank anything that looks ordinarily good out. Just because you like the shot doesn't make it a portfolio shot. It can be in your online gallery, but not a portfolio. Shots in your portfolio should show a high level of proficiency - the best of the last two years worth of work. The football shot of number 2 running down the field is a shot a mom/dad would love, it is clean, colors are good, you can see his face... a nice shot. But it is not remarkable enough to be a portfolio shot.

Trim it down to those 8, if you could only show those 8, you would be most proud of. Or better, have someone who knows nothing about the schools you are shooting and ask them to pick the 8 that resonate with them the most. You have to detach from your personal memories of the game, and view the images as though this were the first time seeing them.

You have some nice shots there... just get rid of the pretty good shots.

[Sauk]

ok i have had more time with this project. I have added captions to all images on the front of the site. I believe they are in the correct formation, going by what was said on SS about them, so how is it now with captions?

[tim]

(only read first post)

I'll never know, because the website's too slow. One image takes 5-10 seconds. I got 2 images in before I got bored, I suspect others will too. Thumbnails are good. Flash isn't usually good. The fonts on the page are terrible. It sucks for SEO, it doesn't have your location, what you shoot, your contact details, etc. Also scrolling on a home page is generally not something I want to do.

I say redo the website, redo the galleries, then more people might find out if your photos are any good.

[Sauk]

tim,

The site is to just show images and albums of recent shoots. I am not trying to get SEO, location of myself, contact, etc..

My main concern is good looking images and captions.

Thanks for the input though, I have adjusted the size of the images. They were over 200K, those are now fixed.

Also the images are timed for 2 seconds before they will move onto the next one. it gives the person time to read the caption that drops down once the image loads.

I don't expect great download speeds from someone overseas as the server that my site is on is in Texas I believe.

[tim]

I get pretty good speeds to the US, my own server's somewhere over there, but I don't even know what state it's in. I know it's turned on is all ;)

[Sauk]

lol :) Well the images are down to under 90K now instead of over 200K. Should be much faster.