Selecting Images For Presentation

I know some of you have been choosing images to submit to 'Black And White' magazine. This process of selecting and weeding out images happens often - whether for a contest, a publication, a portfolio or to show to a gallery. It happens when you decide what images to hang on your wall or show to a friend or even to post to your blog or website.

In the case of 'B&W' they were looking for 8 - 12 images and we know from last year that they prefer images that have a theme to them - random 10 best ever collections were typically not selected for publication. It's quite common to be looking for a theme or style of photographs. It's much easier to produce a random selection but whether a publication or a gallery, they like to know the photographer has depth and nothing shows this better than the ability to produce a collection of work on a single subject.

OK, so how do you select images to present?

Is it true that you are defined by your weakest image?

First I start by selecting every image which could reasonably fit the theme I am presenting. I make copies of the images into a special folder for the porfolio and then I use Adobe Bridge to make a slideshow of the selected images.

First time through I elminate any images with technical flaws. Keep in mind that even if you sneak a small copy past the selectors, sooner or later you are going to be asked to make a print of the image - do all the images hold up in print? If you haven't printed every image by now, then print those you haven't to confirm quality and check for any printing difficulties.

Look for flaws like:oversharpening, lack of resolution, less than subtle image manipulation, bleached out highlights and blocked up shadows. Is focus spot on? Any hesitation and it's out of there.

Next run through pick the obvious winners - the images by which you define your photography. They don't have to be crowd pleasers - you may only be trying to impress a single person whose taste you are not priviledged to prejudge. Remove these from the possibles pile so you don't have to keep going through them.

Probably by now you are down to 50% of the original images - having passed through the top 25% and rejected the bottom 25%. Now it gets harder.

The middle of the pack images are there for several possible reasons - an idea that almost came off and you hate to give up, a sort of nice image, an image that others like but you don't, an image that is terrific in every way except that one little flaw that keeps bugging you, and doubtless other types - hopefully each of your images don't all fit into every one of these categories.

The images that you really like except for that 'one flaw' are probably best bounced off of someone else. Lastnight I had an image I showed my wife (non photogrpaher) and she said she liked it, then I asked her about the out of focus areas (which if truth be known weren't out of focus enough) and she said yes, they were distracting - so out with that image. Other times though something that bugs you about an image may not be seen by others as distracting from an otherwise wonderful image. If you look through the published images of the greats, there are lots of minor imperfections which had they obcessed about it, we would not have had the opportunity to view the work - we expect perfection from ourselves but are more forgiving of someone with a proven reputation. That said, subtle imperfections this year may turn out with a couple more years experience behind you to be glaring errors - I have been in that situation looking at prints I made a few years ago and thinking, 'my god, I've come a long way'. At least, that's what I think on a good day. On a bad day, it's god, I was awful, how did I ever have the nerve to show that in public.

Regarding images that are good but not great - when I submitted my work to Lenswork, I sent them about 25 images. Having accepted me, they then asked for everything along the same theme (black and white industrial). I sent them everything I had that I though anway reasonable and even processed a few more images that hadn't excited me previously. Know what, they didn't consistently print the images I would have picked as my strongest and several images published were from the extra images I sent. Interesting as they printed 17 images and I originally sent them 25 so they chose not to publish about 11 of my original images and replace use four of the extras. Of course, I'd already been accepted, there was nothing to lose, but do consider the possibilty that you are not necessarily the best judge of your own work. Some of your 'goods' are 'greats' to other people.

At this point you might well want to show the work to someone else for their feedback. This is especially helpful if they are pretty honest about their reactions. I am blessed with a wife who while not making derogatory comments about a picture, will let me know how interested she is in it and if it doesn't work isn't afraid to say so. This is a great assset and though she doesn't have a visual arts background, I find that if she isn't excited by an image, I'd better have a pretty darn good reason to over rule her. You too might want to find someone who could play that role. I would suggest it might be better if it weren't a photographer. Uusally our work is being judged by people who aren't themselves photographers, but they are skilled lookers.

Right, we needed 8 - 12 images and we are down to 15. Lets do a double check for consistency of theme - sure all the images are from the badlands, but 11 are close and middle ground images with no skies, one has a dramatic thunderstorm over the badlands, and the last is an old truck dumped into a gully in the badlands. It would make sense to eliminate the last two images no matter how strong they are since they are jarringly different from all the other images.

Here's another check - are any of the images too much like each other - enough so that it's repetitive?

And now for the last check - lets say you are down to 13 images of the 8-12 we need. it's time to stop thinking about the images and just react to them. By now you have looked at them dozens of times - flip through them and rank them according to emotional response. If you haven't had a chance to 'sleep on your selections', come back the next day and see if you still feel the same way.

Now you have to ask is it better to provide 8 really strong images, or show your depth by providing the full 12. It depends a bit on the situation. In the case of 'B&W' we know they are only going to print four images so having 8 to select from is pretty good and if they are strong images, there is nothing to appologize for beause you don't have 12. This would be a much bigger issue if you had simply included your all time greatest hits, in which case running out at 8 has some pretty significant implications, but you can tell a lot about a subject in 8 photographs, so my inclination would be to see if I can determine where the breakpoint is in quality and if it falls between the 8th and 12th image, that would become my cutoff, no matter what.

Of course, after doing all this, you may come to the point where you decide your work is not good enough for publication and lose your never and never submit it. Since it is very unlikely that you are magically within a few months going to produce dramatically better work, why not go ahead and stand behind your work and say 'this is as good as I can do'. The worst that could happen is some derogatory comments from a gallery owner about bird cage liners, but even here there may be something in the feedback that you can take and work with. In other cases, it's a matter of 'no news is bad news', but hey, you can only guarantee results when you don't submit and guarantee you won't be published, displayed, sold or whatever.

Good luck in selecting a portfolio of your own work. Show the world the best you can do, then move on.