Building a Portfolio

I started looking at my images, again. I am specifically looking for what are my strongest portrait shots. My intention is to build a portrait portfolio.

It's amazing, but any time I get ideas like this in my head I am always provided something that makes the project easier. I am not sure how, or why this happens, but it does and I am extremely grateful.

This time, my help has come from Zack Arias' blog. He is doing portfolio critiques, in a "screencast" format. I watched closely as he went through the first few submissions he received. Its amazing what he is doing for people, but it makes me feel about this big, and he isn't even critiquing my stuff. However, I challenge any photographer to watch these. If you don't see your shortcomings reflected in something he says you are either a) already amazing or b) not honest with yourself. Right now, I'm not feeling very special, which is probably a good thing. But it hurts some.

I already had a few images in mind that I wanted to include in my portrait group. I watched Zack's critique of one image in horror because I realized an image I wanted in my portfolio has the exact same set of issues. Fortunately he offered a solution.

You have already seen the color version of this picture back in January. Let me know what you think of this one. I will probably work it a few times before I am happy with it. I am not very skilled converting to black and white. However, I at least do better than simply de-saturating the image. That really sucks.

I have upped the resolution of the pictures posted. That, too, is suggested in the critques.