Portfolio Building Question

Now that I'm starting to collect a fair number of pretty decent photographs, I'm starting to think about maybe putting something together in the way of a portfolio. If nothing else it will be a way to show off my work to friends, though I'd love to actually get work doing what I love so much.

My question is, how big should the prints be for such a thing? I've heard many mentions of using fairly large prints (11x16 or even larger) but considering this stage of my "career" I think that seems a bit excessive. Is this size an expected standard when submitting portfolios for review by potential buyers/employers? Will smaller print sizes (say 8x10) going to deminish the effect of the portfolio?

I hope I haven't asked a question that's already been asked before, I did a bit of a scan and couldn't seen anything in regards to this. Sorry for being such a newb if it's a stupid question.

I just went through this the past week and decided on something more portable as all of my prints are drymounted to 11x14 board and fit in a black 11x14 clamshell case.

This answer is also colored by the fact that I work in sizes from 2 1/4 contacts to 6"x6" enlarged contact prints. Only in the last 2 months have I gone larger than 6"x9" for any of my images.

portfolios

Jeremy Moore said:

I just went through this the past week and decided on something more portable as all of my prints are drymounted to 11x14 board and fit in a black 11x14 clamshell case.

This answer is also colored by the fact that I work in sizes from 2 1/4 contacts to 6"x6" enlarged contact prints. Only in the last 2 months have I gone larger than 6"x9" for any of my images.

Click to expand...

Opps, I hit the wrong button lol, sorry about the pm. anyway, so the prints are straight 11x14 with no border or matting?

I use both 8x10s and 11x14s, mounted on 11x14 and 16x20 inch boards respectively. The main issue with a portfolio is ease of handling. Anyone looking at it will probably be holding the prints and looking at them closely, so you don't want anything to be unwieldy or inconvenient. Generally, an 8x10 is quite enough to check a photographer's technical quality and skill, but an 11x14 has a bit more "oomph" to it and shows good TQ even better. Anything bigger, though, would be hard to handle.