SAP-Selecting Projects to Photograph for Your Portfolio

Project Selection

There are various reasons to photograph your projects, and your probably have different portfolios for different marketing strategies.

• Ideal Target Market Projects - This is the portfolio with images to grab the attention of clients that you’re targeting specifically.
• Balanced Portfolio - For more general target clients that show the wide-spectrum of capabilities of your firm.
• General Projects - These are more of a documentary of your projects, so you have it for your records and the ability to pull these images for specialized presentations.
• Reshooting Previously Photographed Projects - This is a very under utilized marketing strategy which is a way to keep your portfolio fresh with new images even if they are of slightly older projects. It is also extremely beneficial when you have a strong relationship with one or two photographers in which you can further refine your firm’s entire brand image.

When to Photograph

When every possible we highly recommend photographing a facility before occupancy or opening, or just slightly after. Elements and details of a project are still new, crisp, clean, and fresh and free of the normal wear and tear of a facility over time.

Additionally, if you are considering submitting the images for competitions or publications, the more current the project the more relevant the submission.

Identify Your Needs

Questions to ask yourself.

• What elements of your project best represent your vision and design?
• What are additional elements, concepts or other features do you wish to highlight?
• What aspects of a project do you not want to be photographed and avoided by the photographer?
• Were there any aspects of your design that illustrate creative problems solving by your firm?
• How is the photography going to be incorporated into your marketing plan?
• Display to clients via web site, presentations and portfolios?
• Competitions
• Paid placement advertising
• Trade magazines or book publication
• Internally produced publications
• In-house only reference and documentation?

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506