I got into deals content because I was spending more time researching prices than actually shooting. That’s a real problem, and I’ll own it. But there’s a second problem I didn’t talk about as much: even when I was shooting, most of it was reactive. Someone needed a headshot, a friend wanted product photos, a local business needed something quick. I was getting reps in, sure, but my portfolio looked like a grab bag of other people’s ideas. It wasn’t mine.

That’s why this Joel Grimes tutorial hit me harder than I expected. Watch the full tutorial on YouTube – it’s short, direct, and Grimes doesn’t waste a word. He’s a commercial photographer with 30 years of client work under his belt, and his argument is simple: the best images in his portfolio didn’t come from clients. They came from himself. That’s not a knock on client work. It’s just an honest observation about where creative freedom actually lives.

If you’ve ever looked at your portfolio and felt like it represents everyone except you, this framework is worth understanding and actually running with.

Step 1: Accept That Client Work Has a Ceiling

Joel Grimes explaining restrictions of client-based shooting Joel Grimes explaining restrictions of client-based shooting Client shoots come with guardrails. The client has a vision, a brand, a deadline, and an opinion. Sometimes those constraints push you somewhere interesting – Grimes acknowledges that. But as a general pattern, you’re executing someone else’s idea, not yours. The images that result might be solid work, but they’re unlikely to be the ones you’d frame and hang up.

The first move in this system is just accepting that reality without guilt. Client work pays the bills and sharpens certain skills. Self-assignments build the portfolio you actually want. Both matter, and you don’t have to choose between them. You just have to stop expecting client work to do what it was never designed to do.

Step 2: Define What a Self-Assignment Actually Is

Grimes describing going out to shoot what you love Grimes describing going out to shoot what you love A self-assignment isn’t “go take some photos this weekend.” It has an idea at the center, something you want to explore, a subject you care about, a lighting approach you’ve been thinking about, a concept you haven’t seen done well yet. You come up with the brief. You set the parameters. Then you go execute it.

For me, that distinction matters because “free shooting” tends to produce wandering, aimless results. A self-assignment has intention behind it. Even if the execution changes once you’re on location or working with a subject, you started with a direction. That direction is what separates practice from purposeful practice.

Step 3: Commit to One Per Week

Grimes outlining the weekly self-assignment schedule Grimes outlining the weekly self-assignment schedule Grimes runs on a weekly cadence: one self-assignment per week, every week. Do the math and that’s roughly 50 self-assignments per year. Over time, that’s a massive body of work to pull from when you’re updating your portfolio or pitching to a new client.

The weekly schedule isn’t arbitrary. It’s frequent enough to keep your skills sharp and your ideas current, but not so intense that it becomes a second full-time job. If you can block out even half a day per week dedicated entirely to a project you chose for yourself, you’re already ahead of most photographers working in your market.

Step 4: Build a Portfolio That Fits the 10-to-15-Minute Window

Grimes flipping through a double-sided portfolio book Grimes flipping through a double-sided portfolio book Grimes has a specific framework for how many images a portfolio should contain: somewhere between 30 and 50. He uses a physical double-sided book for in-person meetings, and his benchmark is that a complete portfolio review should take 10 to 15 minutes. If it takes longer, you have too many images. More images don’t signal more talent – they signal poor editing.

This is where the self-assignments feed directly into portfolio quality. The more self-assigned projects you complete per year, the more material you have to choose from. You’re not scraping together whatever client shots look passable. You’re curating from a library of work that already reflects your vision. The editing becomes easier because the raw material is stronger.

Step 5: Outwork the Competition Through Volume

Grimes making the case for doing 50 self-assignments versus 25 Grimes making the case for doing 50 self-assignments versus 25 Grimes is blunt about this: if the photographers you’re competing with are doing 25 self-assignments a year, you need to do 50. That’s his actual benchmark. Not “try your best” or “do what you can” – double whatever the baseline is in your market.

The logic holds. More self-assignments mean more practice, more portfolio options, and a body of work that stays current. It also means you’re constantly experimenting, which is how you develop a style that’s distinctly yours rather than a blend of whoever you’ve been assisting or emulating. Volume creates the conditions for a breakthrough image. You can’t predict which project it’ll come from, so you stay in the game by producing consistently.

Step 6: Treat Self-Assignments as Trend-Setting, Not Just Practice

Grimes explaining how consistent self-work builds trend-setting status Grimes explaining how consistent self-work builds trend-setting status This is the part of Grimes’s argument that I think gets undersold: if you’re doing 50 self-assignments a year in a niche you care about, you stop chasing trends and start setting them. You’re building such a specific, consistent body of work that your visual language becomes recognizable before other photographers have had a chance to catch up.

That’s a real competitive advantage. And it costs nothing beyond time and whatever gear you already have. Which, as someone who has proven repeatedly that you don’t need a $3,000 camera body to make a compelling image, I’ll say out loud: the barrier to starting is lower than you think.

What I’d Add From My Own Experience

The biggest obstacle I’ve run into with self-assignments isn’t motivation or time – it’s the feeling that the idea has to be original enough to be worth doing. I’ve scrapped more project ideas than I’ve executed because I talked myself out of them before I ever picked up the camera.

What Grimes’s system implicitly pushes back on is that kind of perfectionist paralysis. When you’re committing to 50 projects a year, you can’t afford to only pursue “brilliant” ideas. You pursue the ideas you have, you execute them well, and you let the body of work speak over time. Some of those 50 will be forgettable. A few will be the best things you’ve ever made. You don’t know which is which until you’ve done the work. So block the time, pick an idea, and go shoot it.

The single most important takeaway from this tutorial is that the portfolio you want to have won’t build itself out of client work alone. You have to deliberately create the conditions for your best images to exist – and that means treating your own projects with the same seriousness you’d give a paying client. One per week. Every week.

Watch the full tutorial on YouTube and hear Grimes walk through it in his own words. It’s worth 10 minutes of your time.