Wedding portfolio critique

Hello everyone,

I am trying to put together my portfolio for weddings and I could use some input. These are basically all the best photos I have (always as a 2nd photographer) I want this to be enough to convince someone to book a wedding with me. (I am not a top of the line photographer, I charge about 1/3 of the middle-high average in my area- which is where I hope to be someday)

The webpage is not 'live' as the website needs a lot of work still, but I was hoping to get the portfolio critiqued, since it will be the first thing people go look at!

I am primarily interested in particular image comments, like: "#21 should not be in this portfolio", or "#5 could be cropped tighter"

Also, is it enough pictures? I have more, but I have to go through everything again to get the next best images... Also, I'd really like to scramble these so the weddings aren't in order, does anyone know how to do this besides manual renaming?

http://www.marshallpho​tographyks.com/proofs/​weddings/

Thanks so much, I can really use the help!

-Joe

I'm not a wedding photographer, but my first reaction to seeing some of the thumbnails is that they get cropped oddly. For example, almost all of the heads are cropped/chopped off on the bottom pictures. Can you use portrait thumbnails for your portrait shots and landscape thumbnails for your landscape shots (or just pick one or the other).

That's an easy fix! Thanks Jason. I'll do that right away!

I changed the thumbnails, they do look better now, I also made them a little bigger on the page.

Any other advice anyone?

I think many of your shots would have been better with a much shallower DOF, to pull the subject away from the background, and some would benefit from a vignette or perhaps burning the background, again to emphasise the subject.

Generally speaking though, they're OK, with a couple of standouts.

Thanks Steve,

I agree that I definitely can work on shooting with a smaller DOF. I'm always so worried that I will have the person in the front in focus and the person behind out... so I am very conservative with my aperture.

Do you think I need more than 33 photos? At what point does it become too many?

i didn't look through much, but i would def say shoot with more shallow DOF. another thing i noticed was the lighting, a lot of the pictures looked a bit underexposed on my screen.

to keep things in focus you can play with having your focus button on the back, i don't know which 5dii model you have and i'm far from a canon expert but you can always set to a back button focus then focus and recompose without losing your focus points, you'll need a quick eye and a quick lens but it can really help a lot.

The portfolio is not consistent throughout in terms of quality. I'd argue you need to lose about half of these images including the last two certainly. Image 32, for example, probably should not have been given back to the client and certainly doesn't warrant being in your portfolio.

There are a couple of images (e.g. image 12) that were exposed fabulously--ONLY if you had popped off a flash to fill the foreground. Short of that they read as just underexposed shots that had potential.

My overall suggestion: reduce to about 15-20 images and upon request by a prospective client to see more images, show your best 80 or so of your best (probably most recent) wedding.

You have 2 shots with the wine glass and the cake behind it, loose one.

No 2, doesn't look initmate enough, they too far apart and the shadows behind are not nice

No 8, some dodge and burn would really draw the eye into the focal point

I like No 27

You got a few first dance/kiss shots, pick you best 2-3

Add some formal male portraits, like groom and best men and maybe a closer one of the putting the ring on the finger.

If you were the 2nd shooter is the main shooter aware you using these pics and are they fine with it. I know many guys who wont let the 2nd shooter use the pics in his portfolio, I've shot some really good stuff in the past which is now sitting on the primary guys site / portfolio and there's nothing I can do....