For the past few years I applied to, and was accepted into B&H Photo’s Portfolio Development Program. Last year I had to cancel out for health reasons but this year I applied again and got in. It’s a great way to challenge myself to grow creatively as a photographer.
It’s kind of like a 6 month creative bootcamp for photographers. We need to attend 6 workshops, 2 critiques, post weekly on Instagram and keep shooting! At the end of the program we submit a mini portfolio of 3 prints and a book that we’ve created to be judged for possible inclusion in a gallery show at Soho Photo Gallery.
The first year I decided on a fairytale inspired theme. These are a few of the images I created:
This one was selected for the show and was used in some of their promotional pieces!
The second round was a photo journalistic / documentary style theme. My project was called Interim Mom. I followed a woman who volunteers with an adoption agency to take care of babies while the birth mom decides whether she will keep the baby or give it up for adoption.
This project was challenging for me because for legal reasons the babies couldn’t really be photographed – but I still had to find a way to tell the story. None of my photographs were chosen for the main gallery show but these 3 were in the final group show. I found her story fascinating and wrote about it here.
The next year was back to more creative images. We also had to create and publish a book through Blurb. My book was entitled Tweenage and included images of my daughters in the stage of life they were in at the time – early teen and tween years.
I submitted these images in my mini portfolio. The top one in the shower was selected for the main gallery show and the other 2 were included in the final group gallery show.
I never know my theme until months in. I just keep shooting until something sparks my interest. This year I’m moving away from people and trying nature and florals and experimenting with different editing styles. For now at least! 🙂
I’m really enjoying creating florals in black and white – something really new and different for me.
For now nothing is set in stone. I’m experimenting and having fun trying new things. I’ll have to decide on a theme and really stick with it in the next month or so because we’re required to create another Blurb book.
For this project I’m posting on my @totalcitygirl Instagram account. Follow along if interested!
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