What to display for portfolio?

There is a current trend to display entire weddings in a blog format. I have joined this trend and as such have adopted my website to incorporate this.

Now I don't have that many weddings under my belt, just 7 so far. All my clients have been happy with the results, in fact my last two couples cried (Nice tears, not tears of horror!) as they went through the pictures, but obviously each wedding gets better. Less experimenting and more knowing exactly how to achieve what I envision.

I feel potential clients are looking for lots of experience and by showing only a few entire weddings that lack of experience is extremely apparent. My very low price should negate that hopefully.

The getting better with each wedding shows inconsistency. Yet each wedding has provided me with a few nice shots.

Do you think clients also might be put off by having their entire(ish) wedding on display? I worry that they expect a few pictures to be used but not entire chunks of the wedding. My contract allows me to do it but if it might put off future clients.

Would I be better at this stage just having a stronger portfolio and forgetting about the entire weddings thing, until I have more under my belt?

Feel free to C&C my website, www.jamesharris-photography.co.uk

jimeuph1 wrote in post #17085855
There is a current trend to display entire weddings in a blog format. I have joined this trend and as such have adopted my website to incorporate this.

Copying trends is the fastest way to blend in with the herd and become unremarkable. The standard blog format is about as boring and vanilla as it gets. I.e. How to make a website look exactly the same as everyone else's.

jimeuph1 wrote in post #17085855
I feel potential clients are looking for lots of experience and by showing only a few entire weddings that lack of experience is extremely apparent. My very low price should negate that hopefully.

Pictures are important. That is what you are selling.

Having a low price doesn't does little with regards to negating the fact you have limited experience. It will however attract more price shoppers who will in turn be much less interested in the pictures you are selling and more interested in the price.

Show work consistent with what you sell at the level you can produce consistently. Showing a handfull of hero shots will set you up for failure unless you can consistently deliver that standard. Showing full wedding examples means the potential clients know what is advertised on the tin is the same as what is in it.

Charge according to the standard you can produce / what clients are prepared to pay.

jimeuph1 wrote in post #17085855
Do you think clients also might be put off by having their entire(ish) wedding on display? I worry that they expect a few pictures to be used but not entire chunks of the wedding. My contract allows me to do it but if it might put off future clients.

You are asking the wrong people. If you want to know what your clients think about their pictures being online ask them... not us. I have some clients who want their weddings completely private i.e. nothing online and others who are happy for entire albums to be used... the only people who can tell me in each case are the clients themselves.

jimeuph1 wrote in post #17085855
Would I be better at this stage just having a stronger portfolio and forgetting about the entire weddings thing, until I have more under my belt?

Show what you sell. The simplest and easiest way to manage expectations from the outset.

Personally I don't go in for the just show your best 10 shots... it is a lie you tell the client. I opt for the approach where I currently have over 200 images across the slideshows alone on my website. A further 4 or 5 galleries and 4 or 5 full sample albums. Then on Facebook I have over a thousand images.

Memoriesoftomorrow, thanks for your response.

Yes following trends isn't great, but if it is something that clients expect to be able to see in one format or another then isn't client demand a good reason to follow a trend?

I actually thought that the collective of togs on here who see clients from all walks of life and places in the world would be the perfect set of people to ask. I can personally ask several clients yet the collective can or have asked thousands, but you are right each set of clients is going to be different and the clients that aren't comfortable with that idea just won't book. I just wondered if I would be turning the majority away or just a minority...

That thought process was what I was going with in the first place of being upfront and transparent, but then the other hand was successful marketing isn't based on those principles either...

I would at the moment rather have price shoppers and then get the experience, than try charging more and not getting bookings due to lack of experience.

I have more than 10 hero shots... I have at least 100 pictures that I feel stand out, from all parts of the day, that I would be more than happy to say is a sampling of the quality of work. I also agree that just a few hero shots is completely misleading, and have always shown much more variance to potential clients.

My issue is my portfolio and my entire galleries overlap to much, am I better waiting until I can diversify them a bit more?

A website portfolio is best to be a continual evolution. Each time you shoot it will change.

There isn't demand as such for the standard blog format from clients. It is just the most common out of the box method of displaying different weddings in a wordpress type website format for photographers who have limited web skills. Photographers do it because it is easy. I've never known a client ask about a blog entry.

Clients expect what you say and demonstrate you sell. Don't advertise or don't offer something for sale it isn't expected. The difference between you running and being in control of your business versus bending over backwards to accommodate the wants of every potential client.

Having some potential clients turned off isn't always a bad thing. In fact it is essential. Attract the type of client you want to attract and turn off the ones you don't want to attract.

What you are saying is what I have been thinking, but I have been having some moments of doubt thinking that maybe my line of thought is completely wrong.

I have worked in sales and know the bull that they make you say to customers to almost force them into a sale, and having seen that approach actually work over and over... needless to say I didn't stay in that job very long at it was very unsavoury... I guess I was tempted by the dark side...

I offer a view of full weddings as separate pages on my site. They are easily the least visited pages. Put together a portfolio of your best work, take from all 7 weddings so that you appear experienced, and don't offer full wedding galleries unless specifically requested.

Peacefield wrote in post #17088792
I offer a view of full weddings as separate pages on my site. They are easily the least visited pages. Put together a portfolio of your best work, take from all 7 weddings so that you appear experienced, and don't offer full wedding galleries unless specifically requested.

+1. We only offer full wedding galleries on demand. It's only to show we can deliver high-quality images throughout the day consistently. It's very rare though that a potential client asks for it after seeing our portfolio and many weddings posted on our blog.

I have around 10 full-day galleries on one of my websites but they are rarely visited; my portfolio page gets a lot more traffic. I don't think "getting better with each wedding shows inconsistency" as you say; it shows you are consistently getting better!
As Memories of Tomorrow rightly says, price is no reflection of quality. I've seen many good photographers who charge way too little (I've been guilty of that myself), as well as some run-of-the-mill photographers who charge too much (IMHO). Look at the market in your area and see what the price range is, then adjust accordingly. A few years ago I raised my prices by 33% and instantly noticed a significant drop in bookings. I hadn't researched my market well enough and had effectively priced myself out of a lot of weddings. I reduced my prices a bit and my bookings picked back up.
Also, when displaying entire weddings publicly remember you are (probably) displaying lots of images of wedding guests and family members who didn't sign a model release. My full-day galleries are password-protected so they're not just 'out there' online, and I have yet to have any complaints.

Just my personal take on it but I don't believe in displaying only hero shots if you're not capable of getting hero shots at every wedding you shoot. Every wedding should generate at least a couple of them.