Erica Hurlburt Photography

Click Pro Elite: 3 important lessons I learned while making my portfolio

Posted in: Personal documentary photos

It was nine years ago that I learned about Click Pro. Nine years ago that I decided to make my photography side-gig something I took seriously.

Our first child was born, I left my full-time job to be home with her, and I dove right in to learning everything I could about the art and business of photography.

I used the little precious quiet time I had to look at the kinds of photos I wanted to create, read up on techniques I felt I could improve upon and sought out critiques from photographers I admired. One big pillar in all this learning was a magazine I came to love: Click Magazine. In addition to showcasing the kinds of photos I wished I had taken, it was full of interesting and educational articles. They had classes for photographers who were learning like I was, and they had a blog to find other like-minded creatives called Clickin Moms.

It was through all of this learning and research that I happened upon what was once called Click Pro (now Click Pro Elite) – an advanced level of photographers within the Click community who were doing incredible work. Artists who had clearly spent a lot of time and effort learning their craft and who were also willing to share their knowledge and their creations with photographers like me who were just starting out. They contributed to Click Magazine, wrote photography classes for the Click community and shared their work with an inspiring blog called The Daily Project.

Immediately I knew that one day I wanted to be a Click Pro.

The portfolio work began right away.

Working toward becoming a Click Pro is a process that for me required a lot of learning, intentional practice, growth in foundational photography skills, and honing my own style through a mixture of combining what I’d learned but also trusting my gut to break “the rules” purposefully.

To be designated as a Click Pro, I had to submit a portfolio of 150 images. That body of work was judged on a 5 point scale in the following categories: Exposure, Use of Light, Color + White Balance, Composition, Processing + Cohesion, Technical Basics, and Creativity + Intention.

Nine years and a carefully curated portfolio of 150 images later, I received the email that my portfolio scores qualified me to be a part of Click Pro Elite.

Here are 3 things I learned while becoming a member of Click Pro Elite

Putting together a portfolio of 150 images of very personal photography work requires a shocking amount of self reflection. Maybe that’s obvious to some people, but it sort of caught me by surprise. Here are the three biggest lessons I’ve taken away from my journey to become a Click Pro.

1. Critiques are invaluable.

Like most people, I’m probably my harshest critic, but when I say I added, deleted, re-added, deleted, and added again to my portfolio over and over I’m being real. Working as a photographer can be isolating sometimes. There aren’t any office colleagues (although my dog is great at keeping my feet warm under my desk).

Friends and family mean well, but at the end of the day they will not say things like, “Your highlights are blown out on that image, and I think if you had managed to get a slightly higher vantage point you could have included this part of the detail in the shot.” It makes a difference being able to hear back specific critiques from people in your field, so when I submitted my portfolio, I was looking forward to hearing very specifically what I needed to improve upon. That’s what is so great about photography (and really all art forms) – there is always room for improvement. There’s always something to learn, more to practice, a new technique to try.

click pro erica hurlburt 4 1 - click pro

2. The by-product of regular photography practice resulted in images I’ll cherish forever.

Something I’m really proud of is the fact that my portfolio was made up mostly of my own personal images and very few images made for clients. I knew that to get better, I had to practice. And if I wanted to make the kinds of photos I admired that others were making – ones with story telling and gorgeous light – it wouldn’t happen overnight.

I turned my camera toward my own family and my own life when I wasn’t doing client work. As I put together my portfolio that spanned nine years of work, I realized I could see my children growing up within my camera frame. My photos ranged from babyhood to toddlerhood to becoming bike-riding big kids. I realized that in all my practice and intentional “noticing” of the life happening around me with my camera, the biggest gift to come out of it was these images I’ll always have of their childhood.

If you’d like to see my full portfolio, you can view it at this link:

https://ericahurlburtphotography.pixieset.com/clickproportfolio/

3. It’s okay to take a break from photography when you’re not loving it.

I have always been envious of those photographers who say their art is an escape for them and a way to heal and process things when they need to. It sounds so nice. That hasn’t been my experience though.

There was a solid year and a half where I took hardly any of my own personal photos. Most of the photography I did was for clients, and that was just because I was being paid. I felt like I’d fallen out of love with my art. I told my husband I wanted to quit photography and move on to something else.

Honestly, it was scary to me to go from being so obsessed with photography to suddenly wanting nothing to do with it. Looking back, I know that the timing of it coincided with what was probably the hardest period of my life so far: Covid, multiple years of back-to-back military deployments for my husband, moving our family from Japan to California, the end of my parents’ 40-year marriage, and the loss of our 13-year-old dogs. I wanted photography to magically heal me like I’ve heard so many other artists say about their work, but that didn’t happen. I felt like suddenly I couldn’t do it, and I was really worried I’d never love it again.

You know what I did instead? I learned to sew. I made so many quilts. I learned to embroider. I cooked elaborate meals and baked to my heart’s content. I watercolored with my kids. I trained for and ran a half marathon with my friends. I created in different ways and set different goals.

At one point, I was talking to my mom about my lack of inspiration. I’d call it a creative rut, but that feels like something smaller than what this was. This was a creative chasm. And I remember what she said to me because it was exactly what I needed to hear from exactly the person I needed to hear it from: “You’ll find your way back to photography.”

Find.

I’d lost my way and just needed to find it again. Like the toys my kids misplace daily, it wasn’t lost forever, just hidden beneath a lot of other things that were crowding my life.

She was right. It wasn’t all at once, but a slow process of dealing with and setting aside all the heavy things allowed it to creep back into my life.

What’s next?

Becoming a Click Pro was a long and meaningful process for me, but it is just the beginning. I’m looking forward to seeing the kinds of experiences that arise as a result of being part of this community of ambitious photographers. I’m also excited to continue to grow and practice my documentary photography with my family.

If you are a photographer with questions about Click Pro Elite, please don’t hesitate to reach out: https://ericahurlburtphotography.com/contact