Freelance Photojournalism & Stock Photography: A Professional Guide

By JW Mitchell

Written by J W Mitchell - a freelance photojournalist since 1990 - this eBook will give you all the information you need to begin a career in freelance press photography and provides essential advice about managing and distributing your news photos, sports photos, celebrity photos, stock photos, HD videos - as well as how to establish yourself as a successful freelance press photographer or sports journalist or stock photographer. A must read for any budding photojournalist or stock photographer!

• Language: English
• Publisher: JW Mitchell
• Release date: Mar 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476183152

JW Mitchell

I'm a British freelance photojournalist, journalist, HD cameraman and author. I write mostly non-fiction titles. I'm also a iPhoneographer as a hobby.

Book preview

Freelance photojournalism and stock photography

by

Jonathan Mitchell

Smashwords Edition

Published by Jonathan Mitchell

(c) 2012 Jonathan Mitchell. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Edition License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Introduction

Photojournalism and stock photography has undergone profound changes since the late 1990s, with the advent of digital sensors and cameras that are easier to get good results with compared to grand old days of film. Competing in this market is tough and many professional press and stock photographers have switched to working part-time or have closed their business to all but their stock images. The digital era has brought welcome changes, and though it has thrown up new challenges too, further complicating the lot of the freelance photojournalist. Add to this market domination by large agencies and it is difficult sometimes to see much of future in it. In this book I intend to provide an insight into the profession and suggest some broad strategies for making a living or a part-time income from stock images and selling to newspapers, magazines and news web sites and book publishers. In financial terms, freelance photojournalism is a cheap business to start, though expensive to run!

Though, with the right attitude and eye and a certain amount of luck, it is still possible to make it into a successful career. The advice I offer in this book will help you understand some of the finer points of the profession. I hope you find it useful and informative.

Chapter 1

Getting started

It is difficult to become a freelance photojournalist and it is much more skilled than many give it credit for. It can be daunting figuring out how to get your new career moving. Initially, and unless you are well-off, then better to work in some other employment until you have the finances to work full-time - if that is indeed what you want?

Of course the first thing you need is a good quality digital camera and the sharpest lenses you can find or afford. You then need a good bag which will protect your camera equipment and laptop - an essential piece of equipment for processing, editing and moving your images, and as is a couple of external Hard Disc Drives to store you RAW, JPEG and TIFF files, but as so to free up space on your memory cards.

Freelance photojournalists work in all weathers and so you need to invest in durable footwear and clothing as well as the technical side of things. Other useful bits of equipment are a touch screen smart phone, a tripod and a tablet computer. Of course, you will certainly need a reasonably powerful laptop computer, preferably a MacBook. It also helps to build your arm muscles a bit as photographer’s bags are rarely light. Getting immunised as to allow travel to tropical countries is also a useful thing to do, even if most of your work is in your home country. Learning basic First Aid is also a wise move.

Thus equipped you now need to study the market you intend to work in and start taking images of a similar nature to the ones you see in magazines and books. This is not as easy as it sounds, though you'll see your work improve after a few months and more so after a few years, as you gain more experience and other improvements will come by the week or day. Surprising it may be to some, the amount of reading that a freelance photojournalist does is immense to keep up with technological developments and incorporate them if need be into the business, not to mention of course, keeping up with the news.

Initially,