How can you organize your photography portfolio by theme or style?

If you photograph people, choose images that have impact or an emotional connection. Storytelling images help the viewer feel connected to your work. Be sure to showcase a consistent editing style as well. As your style evolves, replace older images with newer ones, or re-edit for consistency if needed. It's important that your clients know what outcome they can expect when they schedule a session with you.

This shouldn’t be a foremost consideration for organising your photographs. Absolutely, a project or series will likely need a blurb of explanation as an introduction of sorts, but forcing yourself to write captions for each photo is a needless task which can also distract from the actual quality of your photographs. If you’re a good photographer, your photos tell the stories without needing to rely on words to prop them up. You will hopefully have already explained the overarching theme or ‘series’, so allow the photographs themselves to then tell their own stories of how they fit into the series or subject. There will be some instances where a caption is appropriate, sure, but don’t force it at the expense of ruining a good photo.

As an evergreen content writer, an authentic, unique, story picture is worth 1000 words. What is critically important is where you store your photos (size limitations, filetype allowed, increased cost prices for storage increases, backup, process to find them and access them.) I’ve tried multiple, different places. Which ones work for you and why?

If you’re organising a photography portfolio, themes and/or style are almost certainly not the best ways to organise your snaps. Instead, you’ll ideally be able to organise your photos according to the series or project(s) you shot them for. This has the added benefit of demonstrating not only your ability to identify and conceptualise projects through a visual medium, but also your ability to see projects through and make them happen. This is especially helpful if you’re hoping to advertise your services on a freelance basis. Ultimately, when displaying your portfolio, don’t sell yourself short by inadvertently minimising the amount of creative and logistic thought you have put into your work and instead endeavour to embrace it proudly.

The biggest consideration is always about presenting art works in such a fashion that you can entice an audience that is interested in purchasing your work. Or hiring you to create specific art or photography that they need for one of their projects. There are plenty of options to catalog images. Ease of distribution should be paramount. Targeted collections have the best opportunity for being successful. We creative people like to show how agile we are with the images of our work. Sometimes, too much is way too much and other times to little will impact the opportunity to engage and ultimately sale are personally beloved art works.

Choose your theme, then consider the rest. Style, layout, even if you have to get a graphic desgier and a porfolio expert it would be well worth it.