Caitlin Nelson / Event Producer
The year's biggest celebrity or a killer new product. An off-grid adventure or your neighborhood stroll.
From big events to fleeting moments, photography is a visual representation of how you see the world and the lens through which you bring it to others. And your portfolio is a unique collection of those choices and perspective.
Working Not Working has joined forces with photographers Jessica Pettway & Andi Elloway to look into what goes into a great photography portfolio and how to select images and a layout that show off your personal point of view.
"Super bright, colorful, and cheeky”—that’s how Jessica Pettway describes her work. With clients like Refinery29, The New York Times, Chobani, Ulta, and Apple, Jessica plays with color, shapes, and texture in highly gratifying ways, composing vibrant still lifes that burst with emotion and a sense of occasion when they’re promoting something as everyday as a beverage. She might also be the only still life photographer you’ll meet who cites Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry as influences.
Andi Elloway is a portrait, fashion, and lifestyle photographer based in Los Angeles. Her work often tells a story via first-person narrative and has been compared to gonzo journalism. Elloway takes inspiration from skate culture, travel, and casual rebellion, and has shot for the likes of Nike, Rolling Stone, Glamour, and UberEATS.
Here’s what they had to say.
1. Show Your Range.
“One thing that has really been working for me is just showing the breadth of what I like to shoot. I like shooting people, I like shooting food, I like shooting product. So whether it's my website, my Instagram [or] my newsletter, I always make sure that I'm hitting those three things.” - Jessica Pettway
2. Ask For Feedback.
“I encourage you to ask people around you. This could be your mom, your dad, your friends, people you trust, your mentor. I would just get a wide array, because it's good to have an idea of how your work’s perceived by a lot of different people. You never know the background of the different creative directors you're going to be presenting to, or people who are going to come to your website and see your work.” - Andi Elloway
3. Quality Over Quantity.
“Quality over quantity. Don’t show things that you're not really confident in, things that are a little too rough, a little too unfinished. I think it's cool to show your process, but you really want to show your best work and your best light.” - Jessica Pettway
4. Craft Your Own Vision.
“Don't be afraid to pick your own selects and edit your own images to represent who you are as an artist, so everything that you're putting out still speaks to your aesthetic. The selects you choose—as much as the photos that you take—represent who you are and they represent your vision as an artist.” - Andi Elloway
5. Know Your Client.
“Research the client or your audience or the ideal project or area that you want to shoot, and make sure that your work speaks to that. As artists, it's hard to separate how we feel about a personal subject. It's hard to detach [and ask], ‘Is this actually appropriate for this specific client?’” - Jessica Pettway
6. Keep Learning.
“I always try to keep improving and taking note of stuff that the brands that I want to be shooting for are doing. I keep evaluating my work to see whether or not it’s something that would be in line with that brand. If it's not, I just keep trying to get it there.” - Andi Elloway