So you want to make a portfolio from your pictures?

Smiles from Infinity

Recent work on my self-marketing package included producing a printed portfolio. Simple enough; I have some four thousand archived images to choose from. Some of them have to be good, if not spectacular. As it turned out, I took a lot of really good, even exceptional, pictures over the years.
So, how do I choose what will represent my style? Well, I had to sort, sort those that I sorted, and sort those again ruthlessly. 
Here's how I start my sorting:
First sort: Pull together images that speak to me in some way. Since I'm in my Archive, I've already weeded out poor, such as out of focus or badly exposed, images and those that were too marginal to fix.

Cloud Crown on a Hill

Second sort: Group images by type, such as landscapes, portraits, architecture, street scenes, and so on. Don't forget to include personal projects, as they can really reflect your style. Reject any orphans. Some images can work in multiple categories, and that's good. They make ideal transitions between portfolio sections. Some, like the cuties above, make the front cover.
Third sort: Look at each image as if it wasn't your work. Blow it up on the screen. Do a test print if you have any doubts. Reject any that become blotchy, have cluttered backgrounds or noise you just can't get rid of.
Fourth sort: Arrange your images into logical groupings. Look for repeats of the same thing, be it model, scene or general type. Do two images look similar enough to be confused for each other when viewed at a distance? If yes, remove one of them as you essentially repeated a picture.

Doorway Silhouette 

After all that, I ran the ones I picked past a trusted friend who would tell me the truth for a final sorting. 
Sometimes, it's worth the time and money to go to a personal portfolio review for a sorting by a professional art director or buyer. They really have seen the gauntlet from "Oh. My. Goodness. Where have you been?" to "Oh my goodness, please take this away." And everything in between. They can give you valuable advice as to what a good picture is, and how you can improve the way you present yourself through your images.
Now, you have something worth publishing. I set up my portfolio using MagCloud because they weren't expensive, their color matching is very good, and they could turn around an order in a fairly short time (about a week). They have a template that I used in InDesign to lay out the covers and the pages that works very well with one minor exception: the inside (towards the binding) margins on the first and last sheets inside the cover are very tight. This is a legacy of the perfect (glue) binding process. While I didn't have text cut off, I still had to move text in a bit to re-balance the margins. 

Colors of a Midway

(HP recently sold MagCloud to Blurb, so I'm inclined to get my redoes and alternate editions done sooner rather than later while the quality control at MagCloud is still in place. We'll have to see how well the color control holds up as the two become fully merged.) 
One thing I did have to do is lighten most of my pictures a touch. As good as my monitors are calibrated, images displayed on my monitors are still lighter than they'll appear in print. Lighten accordingly. Use test prints to double check.
Before sending off your baby, print spreads of facing pages. Look for unfortunate groupings or combinations, make sure your progression through each section, as well as the order of the sections, make logical sense. Adjust. Reprint. Look again. Keep doing it until you are happy with the way it flows.
Are you hoping to market your work to architectural firms? Don't lead with a section of portraiture. Travel? Get your beautiful city-scapes up front! If you are indeed marketing to different groups, then it's worth your while to have separate editions of your portfolio for each one emphasizing that subject. They really aren't that expensive to produce (less than $20 each for mine, and that included postage).
That's it in a nut shell. I hope to be wowed by your book of images in the near future.
All images above are under the copyright of W. Clinton Hotaling. Do not republish the images without written permission.

There and back again.

Keeping it between the lines on the back highways.

Our niece's wedding is in October. This isn't much of a problem, but she lives in the Seattle area. My wife and I have a choice: Fly? Ride the Train? Drive?
If we fly, we'd take up little more than an extended weekend getting there, touring the area with my sister-in-law and her family and coming back. Rush. Rush. Rush.
If we take the train, it would definitely be an adventure. However, to do it properly would cost almost twice as much
as flying.
The third option is to drive. We'd bring the travel trailer and keep to the non-interstate highways. As a rule, they are far more interesting (like the views from the train). The truck would less stressed from avoiding the higher interstate speeds. Our mileage under tow is anywhere from 9-12 mpg at 55-60, depending on slopes and winds. Push it to 65 and that drops to 7-9 mpg. It does take longer, about five days out and five more back. But out of a 16 day vacation block, that leaves time to visit with family and a side trip or two to look up friends in Idaho and our first trip to Yellowstone National Park. It also would cost about the same as if we flew out to Seattle, rented a car and stayed in a hotel for a few nights.

You'll never know what you'll find on your
travels off the interstates. This dragon
made entirely of tires greeted
us off of US 18 in Iowa.

Another benefit to driving is that we won't need a puppy-sitter. The pooch can come with us just about everywhere except the wedding itself. We won't be able to eat at a lot of restaurants, but we like to do our own cooking in the
trailer, anyway.
Most times, the cost of a campsite with full hook-ups is far less than a hotel room (although we have been known to take advantage of a local hotel when there is a dearth of campsites).
We'll take separate routes out and back. We plan to follow US-2 from Minnesota all the way to Seattle. The plan is to follow I-90 as far as Livingston, Montana and then turn south for Yellowstone. From Yellowstone, the route will take us southeast to Cheyenne, Wyoming to pick up I-80 or parallel to it on US 30 for the return trip.
There are a bunch of interesting places on our routes. One is Deception Falls in Washington. It's a pretty place, but the falls themselves actually cross under US 2, making for a challenging picture like this one of Brownstone Falls in Wisconsin. We hope to be able to take in the Beartooth Highway on our way back if if it isn't closed due to snows when we get there.
I do look forward to the trip. Seeing my niece get married will be good, too.
Road picture: copyright 2013 W. Clinton Hotaling.
Dragon picture: copyright 2013 Mary A Hoffman, used with permission.