Like many photographers, I have a website that I’ve put a lot of time into, and that has some e-commerce and blogging features. But one thing I don’t have is a side portfolio to showcase my non-client related work. For me, Adobe Portfolio made clear sense to fill this role, especially because it was included in my Creative Cloud membership.

What’s in My Personal Portfolio

As a professional photographer, I typically work with companies in my area to photograph events or to help them with new marketing images. But in my free time, I love to shoot the city. Abstract architecture, cityscapes, nature and more — I’ve got a relatively new passion to travel and shoot.

In the past year, I’ve traveled to Chicago, New York City and Raleigh. I’m planning a trip to Acadia National Park this fall, in addition to more Chicago and Raleigh trips. I want to highlight what I shoot beyond Instagram, so developing a side portfolio has been a long time coming.

Choosing a Layout

The one thing I like about Adobe Portfolio? The fact that it puts your photos front and center. Adobe Portfolio has a few different templates to choose from, but all of them seemed to highlight my photos so that they could clearly be seen.

I tried out a few different layouts, but I ended up going with the Lukas template. I liked the fact that it put an emphasis on big photos, something that my corporate website also has. I went with a dark theme to give a bit of contrast, and to really make the photos pop off the screen.

For fonts, I went with my standard font I use in my logo, to keep things consistent.

Getting Organized

When it came down to organizing my photos, I played around with a few different organizational schemes. I started off with organizing by subject — cityscapes, landscapes, etc. But I ended up organizing by location. While I don’t travel much, it’s my goal to take one new trip a year, and when I visit new places, I take a variety of different types of photographs.

I decided to have very little text in each of my galleries, just letting the photos speak for themselves.

My Thoughts

Outside of the galleries, I had very little content on the site. I decided that, instead of putting the navigation at the top of the site (as is the default), I would put it in the footer. I linked to my corporate website for the About and Contact pages. But then I added a page on the Adobe Portfolio side, specifically about licensing.

Because my professional work is primarily shoot-for-hire, the photographs I make are very specifically oriented to a client. Landscapes and cityscapes are the complete opposite, and I wanted to give viewers the opportunity to easily license my work if they requested to do so. While this page is just a basic contact form, it opens the door to the opportunity of licensing that I wouldn’t otherwise had.

While you may think my portfolio looks simple, that’s really what I tried to strive for. I wanted the photos to shine and be at the forefront. I knew my audience would be different for my fine art site than for my corporate site, so utilizing the tools and templates in Adobe Portfolio made perfect sense. Whether you’re looking to build your first online portfolio or looking for a second website, Adobe Portfolio really is all you need.