Commercial Photography - How To Shoot For Magazines

It seems like everywhere you go, people are now snapping photographs

. More people than ever before are taking pictures because of the new technologies that have made available digital photography. With the relative ease of learning a photo editing suite, people no longer need to worry about the high cost of film or the issues involved with developing it. Memory cards can be reused almost infinitely, so there is no longer the limitation of film. Now a person might take hundreds or thousands of photos when they would have previously only taken a few. With so many new photographers and so many photographs available, now opportunities for selling the images have opened up. Here are some ways that you can start a business of selling your images to a magazine.

What Do Magazines Want?

Although there are lots of magazines covering celebrity gossip and trendy news, there are also thousands of other magazines on just about every subject. You can find magazines about computers, gardens, animals, health, fitness - the list goes on forever. Publishers of these type of magazines are always looking for appropriate and useful photographs for their customers.

One way to think about it is that these magazines will always need images of their topics and are happy to pay for them. For example, a cat magazine will always be in the market for pictures of cats, so it is a great idea to focus on a specific niche?

How to Get Started

First, you should look for a niche that you find interesting. If there is a topic that you are passionate about, there is a good chance that you can find a magazine that covers that topic. Once you've decided on a market, swing by your local bookstore and grab a few magazines off the rack. Look at the different images that they are publishing and decide if you would like to be paid to take the same types of pictures. It is really important to be painfully honest with yourself at this time - can you do a better job of taking pictures that are as good as or better than the quality of the images that they are using? If you don't think that you are ready now, then work on taking more pictures until you are.

When you think that you are ready, find the information in each magazine that gives you the information on how to submit photos or who the photo editor is. You want to make sure that you understand the magazine's guidelines before you start, otherwise your pictures will likely not be accepted. Once you know where and how to send your photo, send it in. Don't forget to include some basic information and a link to your portfolio when you send in your images.

The Waiting Game

When you submit a photo to a magazine, be prepared to wait a few weeks for a response. Magazines need to be printed ahead of time, so remember that you won't get to see your photos for a few months. It is also a good idea to only submit a photo to one magazine at a time, because you might run the risk of having to turn down an offer if your picture is chosen.

Most publications will let you know what their usual wait time is before they respond, and it usually takes from two to eight weeks. If you haven't heard anything after waiting this long, you might consider sending a follow-up message to remind the editor that you submitted a photo. Just keep it polite!

You might be surprised just how easy it is to sell photos to a magazine. All you have to do is find it, shoot it and mail (plus a little waiting). Once you sell your first picture to a magazine and see it in print, you will wonder why you didn't try it sooner!

by: Autumn Lockwood

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