I've spent the last twenty four hours re-organising my "Gallery" section. It needed updating and I needed to better represent "me" as a photographer and what I was up to these days. I have taken it down to 36 images which some people have advised is still more than I should show.
What dictates "how your gallery should look?" I'd say the following factors are important...
1. Who is your intended target? Press? Glossy? Agency? 2. What do you want to say about you as a photographer? - I take too many shots, here they are? or I'm so hot, I'm only going to show you three and a half images, the rest you can beg for, low life scum... There's a balance somewhere between those two scenarios that you have to find... 3. Do you have any good images to show? Put them up, get someone to check them out, take advice (But not from your family, they say*) and cull cull cull... 4. Go over your gallery after you've slept on your choices - what jumps out at you as a bad choice? bin it...
They're a few ideas I've been given since I asked for people to check out my gallery and let me know what didn't work... What I've been informed from various sources is that, basically, I'm rubbish and should quit - most people kept about eight of my images live, they binned the rest... And that's OK...
Let's look further into these results "Keep about six" ...of all the results - and I've had around eight emails with suggestions, in addition to the facebook notes and tweets (thanks for those) let's take NiN for example - exactly three of the replies said bin it, and three said keep it... Very interesting and shows exactly what I say ALL the time on dPS - I may love a photo today that I hate tomorrow, it depends on my mood, the weather, if I've had coffee or not... So many things! (What music I'm listening to when I check out an image!!) - So, basically, I have decided that there is no real point worrying all that much because the person that checks out my images may be in a horrible mood... And then I'm screwed I guess!
My favorite images of 2009, in no particular order are...
You can see all of these images in large, glorious color in my gallery...