O-O-O-O-O, Port-FO-li-o: 15/365
If you got the NKOTB reference in the headline today, I simultaneously applaud your acuity and long memory, shoot you the knowing glance of someone who shares your adolescent history, and apologize.
Monday, June 14 was portfolio day for me. I had an important meeting on Wednesday and needed to update my book (the meeting went well…if it went really well, you’ll be hearing about that soon enough!).
I chose an 11×17 landscape format book from Lost Luggage’s Case Envy line a while back. I like the flexibility of it, and the proportions work for me. I think it’s a bad idea to have people turning your book around to see photos right side up, so I wanted a size that would accomodate nice luscious landscape format photos, and still show a nice portrait orientation. I also like the landscape shape because it feels more book-y to me.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about the whole plastic sleeves thing. On the one hand, I keep hearing (and I believe) that it’s really about the photos, so why get all highfalutin about a very practical presentation method? On the other hand, I worry that it looks a bit uncool. At the “How to Get More Work from Ad Agencies” talk I went to last week, CD Tito Melega could hardly bear to utter the words “plastic sleeves” without shaking his head in disapproval. He said the glare is what kills it for him, as it puts a barrier between him and the work. So, it’s not a snob thing. It’s an issue of smart presentation.
That being said, time was of the essence this week and I wasn’t about to change my process under that kind of time pressure. My book was full of landscape and travel imagery. Not appropriate for my meeting involving still life and studio portrait work.
The post-processing on my selects was pretty much done, but because 11×17 is not a standard print size, there’s an added step before I upload to MPIX. I place each image on a 12×18 canvas in PhotoShop® and put in a text layer that reads “please trim to 11×17″ in the extra white area. I made 2 templates: one for horizontal pics, and one for verticals.It goes pretty fast, but it still takes time when you’re doing 20 or 30 of them. This time I had several images on white backgrounds, so I also added little crop marks on those files, to avoid any confusion. I sent off an order to MPIX just before 5PM on the west coast on Monday and got my prints via FedEx in the nick of time on Wednesday.
In future, I’d like the ability to do prints on the fly in-house. I’ll probably still outsource a good amount of the work (printing at home is not particularly cost effective), but having the ability to make a quick addition to the portfolio would be very valuable.
All this got me thinking. Those of you who bind your prints into a portfolio book without plastic sleeves, what’s your method? Do you mount the prints first? Use a particular kind of presentation binder?
Enquiring minds want to know. I want to know.
Now that I’ve started and finished with antiquated allusions to the past, I’ll sign off.
Ta-ta, dahlings!
-km
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I love this. I use an 11×14 landscape as well. Hard cover, but yes, the dreaded plastic sleeves. I went with the ITOYA “diamond glass” sleeves, because they were the most scratch resistant, and with the least amount of glare, but after seeing some bounded portfolio books, I am more committed now to moving that route. Thanks for the blog.
LD
I think that the whole plastic page thing has been blown a bit out of proportion. There are certainly ways to present images without plastic sleeves, but if someone is unable to ‘deal’ with the incredible trauma of having a little glare on the images that a photographer so carefully prepared for them… well, I won’t make any statements to what I think about that level of arrogance.
And there may be some levels of the game that would necessitate the immediate ditching of plastic sleeves, but when one is starting out, it becomes very important to keep costs down, and visits to Art Directors high.
I like Lost Luggage a LOT. And creating custom books for each presentation is so fast and easy, that I do it for nearly every showing.