When you first start out you work hard to make a single portfolio. But pretty quickly you start to realize you need multiple portfolios often to show different types of work. If you are dealing with clients that want super fast turn around you should not show them a portfolio of things that took you a week to plan, a full day to shoot, and a day of post. You should be able to have a portfolio for them that shows the kind of work they’d expect… your best shots of that but stuff that you could turn around quick if that’s the client’s needs, and have a separate portfolio for the larger stuff for clients who are looking for that.

If I was hiring a wedding photographer I’d also ask to see their portfolio but also ask if they have an example from one wedding, so you see more of the whole picture.

But also regardless of how much you try you will get clients who have different expectations and you will have to deal with those at some point in your career.

I was wondering how much to charge for photography

People don’t pay for “photography.” People pay for product photography, people pay for portraits, people pay for digital restoration of an old photo, people pay for retouching of beauty shots, people play for photography of a baseball game. Each market might be different.

I currently shoot on a canon t5 with manual settings

Forgetting your age entirely. This is a tell-tale statement that usually reads to me that why you are making an effort to learn, you have very limited experience as you’re putting emphasis on the wrong priorities.

I’d negotiate with each client on the needs. Maybe you made some money that can help you buy a new filter or put some money towards a new lens. But at the same time you may find some jobs that give you more experience to learn or opportunities to expand your portfolio may be worth taking a job that pays less.

Charging by the hour may be problematic at your point as you’re still learning. The first time you do a job you haven’t done before you might spend 5-10 hours retouching cause you’re spending time figuring stuff out. By the 10th time you’ve done it, you might be down to 1-2 hours. So if you do charge by the hour, try not to charge for time spend figuring things out. For this reason, charging for number of final deliverable files might be simpler. I don’t know if you want to spend a ton of time calculating hours worked initially (later you may move to that). And again, you can negotiate with each client and set a rate for each as needed.

A museum wouldn’t face mount an unmounted photo, but it won’t stop them from acquiring a photo that was face mounted by the photographer. Contemporary photographer may have their prints mounted in DiBond. Which will keep them flat and have a nice look. Causes a few headaches with handling and storage, but museums deal with it if that is what the photographer wanted.

I just strongly advise make sure the framer is using actual brand named DiBond. If seen knock offs delaminate which creates a whole new set of nightmares.