balance in the women’s press or health and fitness in the men’s press – it is worth getting in touch so the magazine has your name on file.
One of the biggest growth areas in recent years has been in the market for celebrity magazines. The shelves are now heaving with titles that show the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Some like to show them at their best, with the pictures perfectly styled, in a sumptuous location such as their own home. These are normally shot by established celebrity photographers, and it’s not easy to join that elite group. One approach might be to research any stars living in your area and approach them to see if they would allow you to take some pictures of them – perhaps offering prints they can use in their portfolio or website in exchange. If you hit lucky and get someone to agree, and the shots you take are good, that could open the door to more celebrity work. But don’t expect overnight success. This is an extremely competitive field.
Other magazines are more voyeuristic. They feature the rich and famous caught in an unguarded moment, often accompanied by a ‘witty’ caption. Sometimes what they’re doing is mundane, such as eating a hamburger in the street, and sometimes they’re doing something ‘wild’, such as rolling in the worse for wear after a night on the town. If that appeals to you – and it can be extremely lucrative if you get the right picture – you might want to join the hundreds of paparazzi wannabes who effectively stalk celebrities every minute of the day and night.
A more realistic option for most of us is to keep a camera constantly with us in case an unexpected opportunity comes along while we’re out and about. But even then you need to have the ‘killer instinct’ to do anything about it. I, for one, don’t have it. A few years ago I was returning from Nice, and ended up stranded for a few minutes on the tarmac outside the aeroplane. Standing alongside me was an A-list celebrity holding his young daughter in his arms and leaning against his wife who was holding their son. They all looked tired, dishevelled and fed up. It was a picture that would have been easy to take – I had a camera in my pocket – and even easier to sell. But I didn’t have the heart. They were clearly on their way home from a holiday and I felt it would have been intrusive to have exploited the situation. Others would not have felt the same and would have grasped the opportunity.
TRADE SECRETS
There are hundreds of ‘trade’ magazines covering many different kinds of business and industry, all of which have picture requirements.
As well as the ‘consumer’ magazines I’ve discussed so far, which you can buy in newsagents anywhere, there are also ‘trade’ magazines, read by people working in particular industries or professions. You won’t find many of them in your local newsagent, or even in high-street outlets. Many are mailed directly, and unless you are in the business yourself, you won’t even be aware of their existence. That’s when a copy of The Freelance Photographer’s Market Handbook or The Photographer’s Market is essential – in these yearbooks you will find lists of many of the titles that are open to submissions from freelance photographers.
There are magazines for just about every trade and business, including medical, oil and gas, engineering, motoring and tobacco. Some are sold on subscription; others are funded entirely from advertising. Many titles focus on news, making them a must-read for those needing to keep abreast of developments in their area – or looking for another job. Often these publications are full of ‘situations vacant’ advertising, which is part of their appeal.
A typical trade magazine in the UK, for example, is Local Government News, which is read by everyone from professional officers in technical departments of local authorities to civil servants in relevant government departments. Like all magazines, it needs photographs to illustrate its stories and to brighten up what might otherwise be slabs of impenetrable text. As such, it has a regular requirement for quality pictures of subjects such as architectural and building projects, road schemes, urban designs and housing projects.
But which ones? And what should they show? Once again, you need to get a copy and look at what is published. Sometimes the requirements are extremely specific, and only ‘insiders’ will fully understand what is required.
The plus side of shooting for trade titles is that, because they are less well known and generally less glamorous than consumer titles, they don’t receive as much unsolicited material, which means that you don’t have as much competition.
When making your first submission to a magazine, don’t send too many images – as the old saying goes, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. To make sure you make a positive impact, send only top quality pictures. If that means there are only 10 or 20, so be it. Trying to make up numbers by including second-rate material will greatly weaken the submission, and could lead to it being rejected – even if some of the photographs have the potential for publication. It may not seem fair, but that’s the way it works. And if the first couple of sets you send in are judged to be of poor quality, later submissions may receive only a cursory glance. They’ll see your name on the covering letter and not really bother looking at the material.
The most important thing to understand is that your pictures don’t necessarily have to be stunning to sell – they just need to meet the requirements of your market. But they must be perfectly exposed, attractively lit, pin-sharp and well composed. This is particularly true when submitting work to photo magazines and leading consumer titles, which naturally tend to have very high standards.
Magazine editors are busy people, and they need to be able to view images as quickly and easily as possible. When sending digital images, always include a hard-copy reference sheet, so there’s no need to put the CD in the computer to view the pictures. Use a good-quality inkjet paper and ensure the thumbnails are a reasonable size. Six images to a sheet of A4 paper (210 x 297mm/81/4 x 111/2in) is about right. If you go any smaller it’s difficult to see the content properly. Include a short covering letter, and make sure that any CDs and images are clearly marked with your name, address, telephone number and email address.
Don’t be in too much of a rush to follow up. A busy magazine can receive a large volume of submissions, and if you send yours in during press week – the obligatory panic when the pages of the next issue are being ‘put to bed’ – nothing will get looked at straight away. It’s only when things settle back down that unsolicited contributions tend to get considered.
Magazines vary enormously in how efficient they are in responding. Some will send an acknowledgment immediately, so you know your package got there safely. Others don’t reply until they’ve looked at the material, when you will get something between a curt ‘This doesn’t meet our requirements’ and a satisfying ‘We’d like to use some of the images in our next issue.’ If you haven’t heard anything within a couple of weeks, you could send the editor a friendly email to check whether the images have been received safely and whether they might be of interest.
CAPTURE THE MOMENT
Pictures don’t have to be stunning to sell,but they do need
