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If you have hopes of becoming a professional photographer, or even just of trying to get your work published in a public forum, you will need to create a photography portfolio. So what’s so important about a photography portfolio anyway?

There are many reasons why having a portfolio of your work available for others to view. If you are seeking employment as a photographer, then the need for a portfolio is obvious. If you are not seeking a photography job, there are still good reasons to have a portfolio. For one, you love photography and you take a lot a pride in your work. They are important to you. Most likely, some of them are very good. Why not create a portfolio that showcases your best work so you can show it to others (even if it’s just friends or family that comes over for a visit)?

- Building a Photography Portfolio

Before we get into what goes into your portfolio, let’s discuss the portfolio itself. What should it be made of? How big should it be? You may have seen portfolios with covers made of all types of materials such as plastic, leather and even stainless steel. These fancy covers are usually much more expensive and may not be practical for a beginner. If you are competing for high-price jobs and want to stand out from the crowd, these expensive covers may be a nice touch. But for most people, a regular black plastic cover will work just fine. It’s what’s inside the portfolio that is most important, right?

So, you are probably best to stick with a plain black plastic cover and work hard on beefing up what’s inside. Don’t decorate your portfolio with cutesy stickers and such; this will look amateurish and unprofessional. It’s not a scrapbook; it’s supposed to represent your high-quality work.

Now, as for size, this is going to depend on the size of your largest pictures. An 8 X 10 is probably going to be your largest. If your pictures are not this big, you don’t need a portfolio this big. Your biggest will most likely be an 11 X 14 and it could be as small as a 4 X 7.

The most important thing for you to remember is convenience - both for you and for the person who will be looking at your portfolio. You want to keep it professional and easy to hold, carry and look over.

- Using a Photography Portfolio

So now that you know what a portfolio is and what type to get, how do you actually use it? Well, we mentioned you are going to fill it with your best work. This means you want a portfolio that can easily be changed. You may want to pull out old ones and add in new ones. You don’t want to go for a job carrying along every picture you’ve ever taken. You’re going to want to have 15-20 of your best work. You are also going to want to be sure your pictures are relevant to the job. If you are trying out for different types of assignments, you may want to create portfolios that work for each of the types of work you are doing.

Of course, you only want to show your best work but you want to give the impression that you can handle any type of assignment given to you ad not that you are “stuck” in only one type of photography.

You want to showcase your best work; this is best technically as well. You may have a photo that is really important to you because of the image it represents or the memory it brings but if it is not technically perfect, it doesn’t belong in a business portfolio. Save that one for your coffee table.

Looking for information about Photography?
Go to: http://www.asaphotography.com.

‘ASA Photography’ is published by Colin Hartness - An excellent resource for Photography! Check out more Photography articles at: http://www.asaphotography.com/archive.

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The photo from a 3.2 mega pixel camera can print a fair quality 8 x 10 print at 200 dpi. So, why do people buy 4, 5, or even 6 mega pixel cameras?

Well, maybe they want 11 x 14 prints, which at 200 dpi require a 6 mega pixel camera.

However, more importantly, a higher mega pixel camera lets you “crop” your photo. That is where you cut away part of the photo, not only giving you the photo you want, but also making the photo smaller in pixels. As long as you start with more pixels, it is easier to cut stuff out and still keep enough pixels to make it good for prints.

Speaking of cropping, look at the ratios of common print sizes.

a 4 x 6 has a 1.50 ratio
a 5 x 7 has a 1.40 ratio
an 8 x 10 has a 1.25 ratio

What about cameras?

Most newer point-and-shoot digitals have a ratio of 1.33 !!!

What do the photo finishers do when you send them a 1.33 and ask them to print a 1.50? They crop the picture where they think you want it cropped.

How often are they wrong?

A great thing about ordering on-line through the better quality photo finishers is that the web site shows you where the cropping will occur and allows you to change it. That is a great feature.

A better solution, though, is to learn how to do the cropping by using your home computer. Programs like Photo Shop and Paint Shop Pro have pre-defined cropping tools set to the same common ratios as I listed above. Simply open the photo file in your paint program, choose the crop tool, set to the correct ratio, and choose the portion of the photo you want to print.

Now, just save all of the newly cropped files in a separate folder for easy uploading to your retailer or to a memory card that you take in to their 1 hour service.

There are 3 common guidelines to consider when composing a photo

1. know your subject
2. draw attention to your subject
3. simplify

By cropping your photo, you not only assure that you get the photo you wanted; you also follow guidelines # 2 and 3 from the list. Happy cropping.

Richard Killey is an amateur photographer who shares the love of his hobby with readers of his website. Visit http://www.photosbyrichard.ca to read other articles of interest.

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How to capture the essence of autumn colors in pictures when we enjoy the beauty of the autumn in New England or in one of the other states famous for the colorful fall foliage?
After many years of experience when taking pictures of autumn leaves for professional stock photography and for books and articles I reveal some of my techniques in this article.

Nowadays it is so much easier and more fun to use digital cameras for taking pictures in the outdoors of autumn leaves and the nice colors of fall foliage. With a digital camera you can immediately check if your shot was hitting what you wanted to capture and it is easy to redo it if needed.

The captured digital files will easily support your memory of a nice fall experience and you can work on with them at home on your computer and display it for others. The Outdoor Photographer Magazine (http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/) brings a lot of inspiration for your outdoor autumn photography every year.

When you are on location you can choose to achieve esthetic pleasant pictures without emphasis on the natural object you are choosing. Or you can go for nature photography in the pure sense of communicating species in nature like the aspen or the maple trees or insects on fall foliage e.g. preparing for the coming wintertime. Or you can choose to focus on landscape photography.

Many nature photographers would say they aim at combining these intentions, but in reality you might benefit from this distinction for your autumn photography.

First release your imagination for possible pictures - it isn’t just the option to take pictures of fall scenics with vivid autumn color.

You can choose to communicate in your photos:

- Close-up shots of single colors or contrasting colors or a palette of autumn colors.

- Grand vistas of autumn scenics.

- Everything there are in between, like individual trees.

- Fallen colorful autumn leaves or leaves with strong colors still hanging or the branches.

- Combining autumn leaves with soil, with big stones, with the blue sky or with water.

- Make use of raindrops (as natural or some you add artificially to the autumn leaves)

- Make use of fruits of the season, or other signs of autumn.

- Combining the fall foliage with colorful mushrooms.

A simple digital camera will have many options to choose from for your autumn photography:

- Go close with the macro function

- Make wide angle shots

- Make tele photo shots

- Make experiments with the different settings, often provided with the camera, like soft colors or strong colors.

- Try the highest ASA setting to get more corny pictures.

Compose your picture to make it interesting

- Make a rather simple build up of the picture composition to avoid resulting messy photos.

- The tele setting of the lens is fine for isolating objects and blur the background.

- Try a very low position of the camera to add an interesting angle, or to isolate an object.

- With wide angle shots include some interesting object in the foreground. Make sure it will be in focus together with the rest of the picture.

- The main object in the picture can be framed to one of the sides - often to the left seems most natural.

- Be careful with deep shadows as they might come out completely black on your digital file and prohibit you to work on with the problem in Photoshop or another photo editing program.

As always the light is essential to get the bright autumn colors, but also days with overcast sky can give beautiful pictures and communicate the special mood of autumn.

In sun you have the option to make the full use of backlight to lightning up the magnificent leaf colors: reds, yellows and golden in combination with nuances of green. Especially when you combine backlit colorful leaves with isolation of leaves you can produce beautiful photos.

A circular polarizer filter is still useful equipment for digital photography in the outdoors and it will enhance the colors of the sky as well as the foliage if the sun is shining from an angel to your view.

Read more about autumn photography in ‘The Art of Outdoor Photography: Techniques for the Advanced Amateur and Professional’ by Boyd Norton, and about the further processing of your digital pictures in ‘Outdoor Photographer Landscape and Nature Photography with Photoshop CS2′ by Rob Sheppard.

Soren Breiting has a background as a biologist and has been in stock photography for many years. You find a smaller selection of Soren’s high quality stock photos of fall foliage at A-Z Fotos (http://www.azfotos.com) and autumn relevant links at http://www.fall-foliage.net/.

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