All,

What is the current best practice for presenting one's portfolio to local galleries for potential sale, local shows for inclusion, or local clubs for discussion?

I'm not comfortable lugging around a 16x20 box of matted and mounted finished prints, and so I'm wondering what the best way to leave/share my work for consideration might be? (Relatively) inexpensive custom-printed photo books seem like they'd be nice, but I'd like to show and share my hand-printed work, not scans and poor quality digital prints of the same. A portfolio binder with 8x10 prints mounted and matted to 11x14 seems like it's a good compromise between portability, cost, and image quality. A cheap Itoya plastic binder seems like it'd undermine the presentation of the work, but a nice leather screwpost binder or 11x14 museum box suggests care and quality.

There's a lot of discussion on the internet about how to best present one's work, and there seem to be different standards for wedding photographers (a sample album), commercial photographers (a nice book or very expensive custom bound presentation binder), etc.

My work has no commercial value (which, I gather, precludes its inclusion in galleries which need sales to keep the doors open), and I'm mostly interested in, I guess, discovering and sharing my local art community through shows, etc.

I am an avid amateur photographer, but I'm tired of showing my work only digitally on Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I'd like to share physical prints of my work with a larger audience, perhaps a club, etc. A sale or two would be delightful, but it's not my main driver.

In a nutshell, I feel like I'm working in digital isolation, want to connect with a flesh-and-blood art community, and want to know the best way to present myself. Squinting at little images on a phone screen (or slightly larger images on a tablet) ain't it.

Thanks all for advice on this topic. I'm feeling lost and overwhelmed, and a lot of the info out there is either inapplicable or very dated.