Clients / Portfolio Building / Mini Exhibition & Critique

From time to time I will act as a client and give you a brief to resolve which will be either specific to your theme, or broader for the whole group to resolve. I like to give warning for these but they may happen out of the blue. As last week we had a front cover to shoot for a college magazine which the whole group responded to. This went well and the image has gone to print, the client was delighted with the results. From this link with the Chamber of Commerce and Business Alumni within the college we should be getting to connect with more clients. I will keep you all posted on this development.

Also we had two jobs for clients come in from Ian Hey who is very well connected within the local council and National Forest. He has an awareness of a broad range of events that are happening across the borough and again these will open out to this group as and when they happen.

Also I will be expecting a broad range of research of your client and thematic approach to your work which explores and examines the specific genres of your photography.

And I would expect that in response to research and equipment that you initiate experimental test shots of your own in preparation and readiness for working in the area that you are aiming to find clients in,

ie, If you have prospective clients or would like to target, you are taking photographs at all times in preparation for working with them. These images can then be sent to these clients as loss leaders backed up with current, relevant images that you have taken.

If its fashion you are setting up fashion shoots to build your portfolio in this area, this needs to be ongoing and evaluated against original research to benchmark how well you are doing. These shoots have to be self initiated and to do this you must be as per all professional photographers, continually producing images as part of your continued professional development. Do not wait to be asked in order to produce these, you need to be very proactive (an attribute you need to develop to succeed in any area of photography).

In order to focus your minds we will be having a 'Mini Exhibition / Critique' of all the work produced so far in the last week before the xmas break in order to see where we are as regards your own work. This will include client work and experimental images aimed at prospective clients. All students will present their work to the group onscreen to avoid the expense of printing images out, and the rest will critique and discuss the images. All work needs to be post produced and sized to A3 300 dpi.