Adam Hester Portfolio Review

all photos ©Adam Hester, used with permission

I've had the opportunity to speak with several photographers over the phone regarding my offer in the beginning of March for portfolio reviews. My idea was this: provide completely honest feedback to the photographer's portfolio as well as answer questions they had and tailor the answers specifically to their work and aspirations.

Earlier this week I chatted with Adam Hester, who has okayed snippets of our conversation to be published here with a few pieces of his work. Adam's been assisting for a few years and is now shooting for himself and working on getting his own clients. His questions were:
Get some feedback on his website. How to approach art buyers? How could he come off as more prepared or assure potential art buyers/creatives of his attention to production value?

**Note: All of the feedback provided below is just my opinion and is specific to Adam and his work.

Feedback:
The set up of his portfolio starts with the sub head "Playful Surroundings", a personal project Adam's been working on and testing. When I search through websites looking for potential photographers for a project, I normally go to either the first subhead or the most obvious relevance to my project. Meaning - you have 5 subheads and I'm looking for portraits, I'm going to go to your portraits portfolio first look through it quickly to see if it jives with the needs of the project and then move onto the next photographer.

My suggestions were to use some different props or none at all. the images are great even without the subject holding anything. For instance a few of the images I didn't necessarily understand as far as the conceptual approach but the subject, the expression and the framing of the image was beautiful. Some of the strongest work that I reacted to in the portfolio were the snapshots in the "Instant Love" section. I know these are some personal projects hence the names associated with them but I suggested splitting some of these up to really show focus on the in the portfolio so the can attract work.

Approach art buyers with confidence in your work. I always suggest face to face meetings, it speaks so much more to the personality and associating the work with the photographer. Especially go after the clients that he wants to add to his roster. have an aspirational list of clients that he can see his work being associated with and start knocking on their doors.

As far as being prepared and working on projects that require more production, don't bite off more than you can chew, surround yourself with a very capable support team of producer, stylists, crew, and be honest.

You can view Adam Hester's work at adamhester.com