By Arya Kazemi, Posted Jan 24, 2007
Sections: Intro Good Photography Shooting People General Tips The Right Camera Is There Any Money In It? Magazines & Newspapers Stock Photography Your Own Website Selling Prints & Postcards Self Publishing
Every travel photographer would love to take photos for National Geographic. You probably won’t be though as the big mags and newspapers tend to work only with experienced professionals with an impressive resume of travel photography behind them.
There are plenty of smaller magazines who welcome feature photography from freelancers, however, though they generally expect you to be able to write as well. Rates will vary from $50-$500 for your photos in magazines and the main thing is to build up a portfolio of previously published work, so submit everywhere and anywhere.
But very few photographers make their living through selling prints to magazines. Plus, once the image is sold, it’s gone forever. Whereas with stock photography you only licence the image and retain the copyright. Most magazines will tend towards stock photography anyway as a cheaper option than commissioning someone.
If you’re in the right place at the right time then you might be able to hustle your images to a newspaper. Hanging around Baghdad, you might be able to get some images of terrified Iraqis in the aftermath of a bombing and end up selling your images by auction. Or not. What makes an image valuable or newsworthy is something of an enigma and just being there isn’t enough.
If you have some topical photos that you feel might be of value to mainstream media, then posting them on scoopt.com might be your best outlet – its regularly scanned by editors and you keep half of profits of any picture sold.
