I’ve been in the Boston family & newborn photography community for SIX years now. It blows my mind how time flies. One thing I’ve noticed over the last couple of years is that many other photographers in this community are Click Pros. Without knowing much about it, I always wondered if it could benefit me in any way. It seemed it just earned photographers a badge to put on their websites, one that probably means nothing to prospective clients, so I never had much interest in applying. However, as learned more about it from friends this year, I realized what Click Pro has to offer professional female photographers. SO, with some persistent nudging from my photog pals, I finally applied :). Here are some images from my portfolio and a bit about my process for selecting them.
Using Pre-Existing Portfolios
The first place I started was with portfolios I already had. I began scanning my website galleries and my Instagram feed for favorites. From there, I went into my Pixieset galleries and re-downloaded those images. I then dumped all of these into my Click Pro gallery on my Pixieset site.
Scanning for Technical Issues
After putting all of my potential photos into one folder, I then went through and deleted anything with technical imperfections. Soft focus was a big one. As a newborn photographer in the Boston area, I sometimes find myself in dark, older homes. This requires me to use camera settings that sometimes result in slightly soft images. They’re still beautiful and worthy of sending to clients, but they aren’t *technically* perfect. Blown-out backgrounds and images that were too shadowy also got deleted, though there weren’t many of these. Lastly, any images that seemed slightly off color-wise or in terms of skin tones were deleted because I no longer have the raw files for most older images and wasn’t able to re-edit. I also didn’t really feel like it, ha.
Checking for Variety
Once I weeded out some images, I looked at the variety in the remaining images. When I say variety, I’m referencing variety in all forms- composition, poses, locations, backdrops and lighting. I included photos with backlighting, low light, and directional light. A few were even shot midday in harsh light. The objective here was to showcase my proficiency in different situations.
Organizing for Cohesion
One thing that Click Pro looks for is editing cohesion. As a Boston newborn photographer who finds herself in bright, airy homes as often as she does dark, shadowy homes, this is a challenge. It can be difficult with outdoor family sessions as well since I use a variety of locations and shoot on both sunny and overcast days. What I try to do is edit in a way that makes each unique environment look its best, rather than trying to make everything fit one style. SO, in an effort to make my portfolio more cohesive, I put a lot of thought into its organization. I began with all outdoor color images, specifically images with warmer colors and jewel tones. Next, I transitioned to photos with a lot of green, then blue, etc. I finished the color section of my portfolio with moody indoor images as I moved on to black and whites. When all was said and done, it had a nice flow to it.
Last but not least, I got another set of eyes on my gallery! Or a few sets ;). It was not only helpful for the purposes of my application, but just to get constructive feedback generally. I now pay closer attention to awkward limb-chomping, blown highlights, and straight walls :). If you plan to apply, I definitely suggest having a friend or two take a look first!
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Melissa Rabbitt is now booking Boston family and newborn photography sessions for February and April- June. You can get in touch by reaching out here.
