The forever purge

Portfolio thoughts again.

I think I’m a bit obsessed with the topic, but it’s so very important. A portfolio is one’s CV, brand, shop window.

As you’ll know - if you’re at all interested the plight of small kittens* - I’ve posted at various times here, on IG, and on my blog, a range of thoughts on portfolio curation. What to include, and how to choose. The difficulties and the rules. How it’s an art and a science. About how to think about who you’re “speaking to”, and what you’re saying. On the tricky balance between showing variety and consistency, the battle between new work and old; putting forward a clear, personal style but displaying the ability to handle the other stuff.

I’ve written about how images become like one’s children (but one’s you’d sacrifice). Why the work we’re proud of today is - by necessity - the same about which we cringe tomorrow. And I’ve touched on the ever-so-slight deterioration, the consistent degradation and corruption caused by each viewing. Sort of, a bit like Frodo and the Ring, if I stretch the analogy (but with the Ring getting worse instead of Frodo, or something). So that it’s generally best not to look at one’s work, ever.

Portfolio and website maintenance is an ongoing, never-ending process, or should be. Ask any photographer about their website and they’ll always say, “Oh, I’ve not updated it in ages.” I’m often adding to mine here and there, bit by bit. And then I hack it back in swathes once in a while. And today is that day, as it’s gotten rather bloated. That and the fact I’m pretty much wrapped for the year**. It’s the Alex Rumford Photography Purge, where, just like in the film, for 24 hours I can delete as many photos as I want. (And then worry about my decisions.)

The guiding questions when keeping or killing*** each picture, as always, are:

Does it say anything? Is it interesting / does it move me? Is it similar to work I already have?

As well as the less-obvious consideration, to do with honesty and objectivity: was it really its own merit which got it into the portfolio originally? Or because of what it took to get it? Because a tough challenge or interesting job doesn’t mean a good picture. It merely creates unwarranted and favourable bias, an attachment which unravels in time.

And, of course: is it any good?

Anyway, have a look at my lovely portfolio over a nice cup of tea and a biscuit****.

*This has nothing to do with kittens. That was a cheap, clickbait-y trick. No animals were harmed in the making of my portfolio.

**This is the moment you realise, as I just did, that I’d forgotten to publish this blog post back in December. But don’t worry, in a few paragraphs there are biscuits.

***Yes, photographers do actually use the word “kill” when “cull” will do, because it sounds cool.

****I promised biscuits (plural) but that was to keep you reading. There’s just one left. Sorry.

University prospectus

Images from the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies prospectus:

Recent work - June 2025

As usual, this is an occasional selection of my 4* and 5* work over recent months (see here if you’re interested in the rating process). The 5* work will end up in one of my galleries. So these “Recent Work” posts are really about showing the 4* ones, the not-quite-portfolio-strong-but-a-shame-to-consign-to-the-hard-drive. Or NQPSBASTCTTHD for short.

A bit of a preamble: portfolios are on my mind at the moment. I noticed I’ve not updated mine much over the past year, and this has always been the litmus test for how I’m doing: how often am I on my website, updating my galleries with new images?

I’m not good at social media. And I’m unsure if anyone reads this blog (there are diagnostics… but the graphs look unhealthy. Again, it doesn’t matter, I’d write anyway). And so my portfolio is all I really have as my CV. It’s there to show my best work, without algorithms, echo chambers, or social media tomfoolery. Anything I’m not happy with gets removed over time, as it just can’t survive the seasons.

So it’s reliable. And I can direct people there.

But if it’s not watered regularly (to mix metaphors) with fresh content then that can be stressful. ‘You’re only as good as your last photo’ - and all that. And it hasn’t been fed or updated much. There are perhaps three 5* images in this set, but none of those that I really love. Which I’m not thrilled about. I don’t want to overstate it. All of the below are fine, even decent. The main thing - The. Main. Thing. - is that they did the job. But we always have to aim higher, for the client and for ourselves.

(If this applies to you, read this and then maybe this which I hope will help your thinking.)

OK love you all bye.

On Looking

I’ve just finished reading On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz.

In it, she walks a regular city block with eleven different people, including a sociologist, a geologist, a blind person, her child, a sound designer, and even her dog. And she sees eleven completely different worlds.

It’s a beautifully written, witty and fascinating exploration into the fact that our skills and background shape what we notice, and can determine our experience.

There’s a subset of this which is something I think about a lot: we see different things depending on what we’re doing. So: not just who we are, but what we’re preoccupied with in the moment. It determines the focus of our attention, and we then miss most of what’s around us. Not because it’s subtle, but because there’s too much information, and it’s nearly all irrelevant*.

If you’re waiting for a bus, you filter for buses. Lost your keys? You scan the ground. In psychology we create what’s known as a “Search Image” - a mental representation or schema to guide a search for a specific target, particularly in a visual context**.

To do this, we need light. Which surrounds us, all the time. It literally makes up *everything* we see - and is the framework of photography. It gives us shape, form, texture and colour. Yet we barely notice these facets in our day to day. They serve only to help us make sense of our surroundings.

We do this because - consciously or not - we’re always doing, planning, or thinking something. So we overlay everything in front of our eyes with meaning, constantly simplifying and interpreting our environment according to what’s on our mind, or how it relates to our situation. We see clouds in the sky: that just tells us it might rain later. And there’s a shape in the near distance. If it’s taller than it is wide, then it might be a person. Do we know them? Do we need to move out of the way? Or we see much larger shape approaching, in the road. But then we see it’s green. We can now ignore it, because it can’t be the bus we're waiting for, which would be red. Getting home, a pile of clothes on the floor catches our eye. We immediately notice they’re white - but that serves only to confirm they can all go in the wash together. And our next thought is likely annoyance that they’re a mess, and have been dumped - so that’s a conversation we need to have later with our teenager.

We couldn’t get by in the world without doing this. We see in order to process, in order to plan. Intentions and actions drive one another. Nothing just “is”.

Perhaps Del the Funky Homosapien (of Gorillaz fame) summed it up best in Clint Eastwood:

“…you don't see with your eye

You perceive with your mind.”

This is where photography comes in. Walking with a camera? Well, now the world can be purely visual. Devoid of practical considerations. Just what you see.

That bus is now a rectangle. The street, a straight line. The coffee cup, a circle.

With a camera, we learn to see things as they are, not how we think they are. 

But no, not quite. Again, even here, in the abstract, we’re still doing it. It’s only for the sake of simplicity that we conceive of buses as rectangles, streets as lines, cups (their rims, at least) as circles.

But this is just another shorthand. Because they’re not.

Buses are trapezoids, in our experience (except from directly beside one and from far back - which is never). And coffee cups are never circular, except from directly above, which - again - is not how we usually look at them. The rims (at least) are nearly always ellipses***. And streets are triangles - yes, really - just take a photo when you’re next at the front of the queue at traffic lights.

This difference is important. It’s hard to see things as they are, even with all else stripped away, because we’ve already internalised objects into loose categories for the sake of convenience (and therefore speed in mental processing). We simplify and group shapes, even though we’re often very wrong. We place assumptions onto lines - consider the many optical illusions you’ll see on any social feed. Or you don’t have my distracting algorithm, you’ll have seen the one with two arrows of equal length. And don’t even get me started on colours - remember the blue and gold dress?

Anyway, that’s what I think about (and would recommend the book because it covers this, and so much more).

There’s something meditative in allowing the visual scene in front of you to be just as it is, without judgment or interpretation. It’s a gentle, mental shift in what you let yourself notice. And it comes from a simple, deliberate change in intention and in one’s attention.

*You may be familiar with the Invisible Gorilla test as an extreme example. Subjects are asked to watch a short video of people throwing a ball and are instructed to count the number of times a ball is thrown. More often than not, they completely miss someone dressed in a gorilla suit appearing and walking centre stage, waving, and then leaving. You can see versions on YouTube. It’s called “perceptual blindness” and is an extreme example of the occasionally bizarre results of selective focus.

**A good example was just the other day, when I was looking for something thin, flexible and curled in order to unhook something. I knew there wasn’t an exact tool and I didn’t know what I was looking for - or rather what item would provide the solution - but I could easily scan for the properties needed. I was equally likely to find the appropriate tool in a cutlery drawer, a toybox, a toolbox, or in a desk drawer.

***And if you’re interested, with your eyes in front of it and above i.e. when you’re drinking coffee, the shape of the cup, if it’s a cylinder, would be an “oblique conical frustum” (which I think sounds more like a painful stomach condition).

The photographer's dictionary

Capture (noun)

An irritating term for photograph with, “Nice capture!” being the most vexing.  

Chimp (noun)

The practice of repeatedly checking the back of a camera, typically in between shots, to review or evaluate the captured image. Possibly originating from the resemblance between the excited vocalisations of chimpanzees (often rendered as "ooh, ooh!") and the sounds of a photographer reacting to a satisfactory image.

D.P.I. (abbreviation, archaic)

Dots Per Inch. Unnecessary unless you’re printing a photo, and probably unnecessary even then.

G.V. (abbreviation)

General View. A wide or establishing shot capturing the overall setting or context of a location. Considered a critical component in visual storytelling. Notably, failing to capture a GV often coincides - some might say ominously - with the location being destroyed on the same day. The lack of an image can then be problematic in subsequent stories about its destruction.

Glass (noun) 

Camera lens or lenses, only ever used in the phrase, “Nice glass.”

Golden hour (noun) 

The act of returning to sleep upon realising that the clocks have just gone back for daylight saving time.

Gen(erative) Fill (noun)

AI Photoshop tool which creates whatever you type and eliminates the need for photographers.

Kill (verb)

To delete an image. 

Muzzy (adjective)

Out of focus.

Metadata (noun)

Information embedded within a digital photo file that details its technical and contextual attributes. Includes data such as camera model, lens type, exposure settings, file size, and timestamp, along with optional user-added information like the photographer’s name, and caption. While metadata identifying the copyright owner can technically be removed, doing so without permission is not lawful.

Moiré (noun) /mȯ-ˈrā/ 

The unresolved, wavy, rainbow pattern which appears when an object contains repetitive details (such as lines, dots) that exceed sensor resolution.

nofilter (hashtag)

Literally, no filter has been used to edit a photo, but generally used to mean that a photo has not been edited. A complete fiction, since by definition the creation of a jpeg involves editing processes including sharpening, contrast, saturation, colour profiling etc. (see RAW file). Moreover, if you’re not doing a least a little basic editing, you’re doing it wrong and should not brag about this.

Orphan work (noun)

An image without metadata.

Pin (adjective)

Sharp (of a photo)

RAW file (noun)

An uncompressed, unprocessed image. Asking for the RAW is like asking the cook for uncooked ingredients (see nofilter)

Schindler (noun); Schindlerise (verb, probably)

A term referencing Photoshop’s “selective colour” tool, inspired by the 1993 film Schindler's List, which is predominantly black and white except for a single element (a girl in red). In a black and white photograph, one detail is left in colour to draw attention. Don’t do this.

Tog (noun)

Also, “Photog” - a photographer.