The good news is that I can see the summit from here. However, I still have more climbing before I can plant my flag atop Photo Selection Mountain.
I started by shooting thousands of photos for my urban nature book project. Then I winnowed them down to 530 that deserve consideration for inclusion in the book.
That’s a lot of photos.
If I included them all, the book would be several inches thick. Hence, more winnowing is needed – and I can’t do this job by myself.
Hence, I’m preparing a selection of the best photos for presentation to a mentor. My best picks add up to 164 photos, or 31% of the aforementioned set of 530 keepers.
Mentorship in Action
My mentor is a veteran university art professor and working artist, and I have worked with her on other photographic projects. Her job will be to pick the absolute best among the 164 photos that I will present to her.
Now, I don’t want to be like that flaky photographer who goes to a portfolio review and dumps a pile of prints in front of the reviewer. Suffice it to say that such a performance won’t make a good impression.
So, I have created a password-protected online space that organizes the photos by type and topic. To name a couple examples, Gallery 06 – Birds – Mourning Dove, and Gallery 36 – Yard Closeups – Pomegranate. For the record, there are 45 galleries within this online space.
Because my mentor is an experienced art professional, I expect that our selection process won’t take more than an hour. She’ll make the picks, and I’ll note them on a chart that I have prepared.
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