Portfolio Review with Jason Millennium Images

Portfolio reviews remain the best way to get your photography in front of industry experts, for example my portfolio review was with none other than Jason Shenai from Millennium Images. Millennium Images was started in the 1990s by Jason Shenai with the purpose to bridge the gap between art and commercial photography. They sell reproduction rights, put on exhibitions, sell prints and undertake portfolio reviews. They work with many organisations supplying images for magazines, advertising and especially book covers throughout the world.

Portfolio reviews are one of the best ways to spend dedicated time with some of photography’s most highly respected and experienced experts, in which they provide massively helpful reviews of your photographic work.

However it is important for the emerging photographers to understand what they want to gain knowledge or advice on before entering the session. Key things that you may discuss in a photographic portfolio review can include; industry advice, information about opportunities and exposure and feedback on a specific project.

For new photographers just graduating this can be a very valuable tool for success. I found that for myself, this to be the case. It was helpful to get an insight into the professional world of photography from someone who has been in the industry a while.

I ‘zoomed’ Jason armed with a notepad and pen ready for all the helpful information he was going to give me.

After formalities and some technical difficulties we began, Jason shared his screen with me and we went over my portfolio I had sent over to him earlier on in the month. Composed of eleven, two page spreads, my portfolio was a mixture of my favorite images from my favorite projects from university year two and three. Unfortunately due to the lockdown my final images for my final project were not ready in time for our review. But we did speak about my project, what I was thinking of doing and how I was going to execute it. He suggested that I focus more on the separation and try to show this more obviously in my images. For example take a shot from far away, almost so you cannot make out who or what you are looking at. He also suggested handing the camera over to my partner and let him interpret my project and take photos of me. This really stuck with me when it came to my shoot with my partner, here are some of the images he took.

Going back to the portfolio itself, Jason Senai’s first critique was to keep it to a single image per page unless I was doing this for artistic purposes. He did however say that this message was not conveyed to start with so not to stress about this in the future, just more of an observation.

As far as critique goes he only had one more comment which was to put the title of my images at the top of the page as it is then more obvious for the viewer to see what project is what. Again very useful advice which I will apply to any future portfolios that I make.

It was really useful to have an outsider's perspective. Whereas inside the institution they are aware of my project and have spoken about it in one to ones and group critiques, he has a fresh perspective on the projects and this was useful to me to see it in more of a professional context.

We spoke about the importance of text with certain images and projects, he queried more what my project entitled “A Feminist Manifesto a Generational Perspective”. He’d stated that the images were very lovely but he would like me to explain what the project was about. A Feminist Manifesto a Generational Perspective is a project from my second year, I wanted my work to be based on different generations views on feminism. I particularly wanted them to be based on the views of my family as I thought I could learn and engage with my family on a different level than I could before. I decided that I would interview three members of my family, my nan, grandad and my mum. I liked the idea of having both a generations perspective but also a male female perspective too. So here you can see that text alongside my images hold great importance as this is a more documentary style piece.

We finished the zoom meeting, to that end I had a fresh perspective on both my current and previous projects. It also gave me a more professionally critical view of my work which I can apply to my work going forward.

I think the main disposition I find myself in was that the portfolio reviews were online. I would have much rather enjoyed printing out my portfolio and having a discussion in person, as I feel that this would have given me a better opportunity to talk more fluidly. I also would have liked to have it after the final hand in when I potentially could have brought my printed book for my final project entitled ‘A Love Letter to Separation’. It was also difficult having the discussion over a video call as we found that we kept talking over each other or cutting out, this would not have happened if we were face to face as it would have been more of a conversation rather than a disconnected video chat.

All in all I found the portfolio review very useful and may be something I look at doing again in the near future with my final images I produced for my final 303 project ‘A Love Letter to Separation’ as this would be something I’d find more useful in my practice going forward.

I would maybe consider having a portfolio review with Landskrona Foto as they are among the most valuable and in-demand among photographers. I feel I would benefit from a fine art photographic background of which they could provide to me.