Thats nice, wheres the rest....

When I was at college long ago the final year was all about the 'Portfolio.' Back then it was simple: Landscape or Portrait, Leather or Plastic, but most important of all it was , 'How many prints should be in the final book?' Too many and people may get board, too few, and people wouldn't take you seriously, so on and so forth.
But today with the 'Digital Revolution' combined with the ever popular 'PROJECT' we are faced with websites sometimes containing hundreds of images. Theres project 1,2,3,4 and 5, commissioned work, personal work, recent work, archives, short films, bios, blogs, poems, favorite foods and maybe a self portrait with there pet. Try putting all that in a portfolio case.
It should be pointed out that my own print folio has 96 images which is basically four projects. But my gallery portfolio only has 12. I should also apologise to my agent who has to lugg my folio all over the place.
The problem these days is that people expect to see so much more. You show twenty images, they want to see another twenty. I have found this particularly true of galleries and after spending a whole week printing and getting the series just right the last thing you want to hear is "These are nice, wheres the rest?" So much for 'Less Is More'.

A real issue I have with web images is the quality factor. Where as I think its fine to give someone a taster, they will never see the best of the image unless they look at a print. Lets face it a 10/8 contact print will always pull the pants off a 72 dpi 10/8 image on a computer screen and no one likes to wait thirty seconds for a high res an image to load (which they will then print out and put on there bathroom wall..)
So my friends, In an age where everything has to be now, let us remember not to sacrifice time for quality.
I'm off to see if I can fit four more images into my mighty portfolio. Stand aside yellow pages, or should I say, Yell.com...

"All Good Things To Those Who Wait"
Hanibal Lector. Silence Of The Lambs.