The metaphor holds true for online portfolios as well. Look the first image, click to advance to the next, on to the end, and then pffft. Often there is no easy way to start at the beginning. There are loads of ways to scroll through a hideous pop up navigation bar of thumbnails that undulate back and forth with every minor move of the mouse. But no one cares about those thumbnails.

If someone is struck by an image that you’ve shot while “flipping” through your online portfolio, they’ll stop and look at it for a while. They may even bookmark it. Or if your lucky they’ll download it, print it, and tape to their cubicle wall. Best case scenarios is if they rook it and drop into a pitch campaign as a place holder.

When I used to have a physical portfolio, my agent and I spent a lot of time laying my 9×12 prints on the floor and arranging them in a specific order before placing them in the sleeves of the portfolio. The art is not dead except for the circumvention offered by the pop up thumbnail navigation bar.

Just because the technology of a browser based portfolio affords the opportunity for all kinds of fancy navigational elements, it doesn’t mean you have to use them. Human nature is pretty much same when it comes to portfolio viewing. Start at one end and go to the other. If you notice someone bailing out of your site before viewing your whole portfolio, trust me when I say it has nothing to do with the absence of thumbnails.

“…okay”

The booked dropped this month and I couldn’t be more happy for Kimberley or my waistline. The book is a beautiful look at the Dordogne region of France with food as the motif for the travel.

You can see more info about the book here. Buy it on Amazon here: Walnut Wine and Truffle Groves: Culinary Adventures in the Dordogne

When I was speaking in Seattle I promised to post a treatment I wrote for a television show that was pitched to the SyFy channel. The concept for the show was hatched by my friend, Craig Titley, a screen writer who wrote the soon to be released Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief. The basic premise of the show is based on an Outer Limits style platform with a twist. I’m not going to reveal the twist just in case this thing gets shopped around again, but if you’re astute, you can probably figure it out.

Craig told me about the concept of the show about two years ago when we were out at dinner in Los Angeles. As as he explained the premise I was inspired by an idea that I thought would work for the show and asked if I could write a treatment for the pilot. I wrote the first draft, which is about three times as long as the third draft, on a plane flight to New York. I walked away from it for about a month before coming back to it with fresh eyes to edit and refine the story.

I took a shorter break after the second draft because the story was spinning around the back of my brain all the time and I resolved some of the issues I was having within few weeks. Believe me, it doesn’t always work that way. The next step was to register it with the Writers Guild of America registry to add some level of protection to the intellectual property. After that I turned it in to get pitched. I’ll post the treatment on PhotoCine News on Monday as a downloadable PDF.

A few civilized drinks after my presentation at the National Geographic cocktail soiree in Washington, DC. As shot by NG shooter Ben Horton.