Can You Really Become a Professional
Photographer?
This article is in
response to that question. It seems I get asked it several times a week.
Well, the answer is two-fold:
First: Yes, you can, but
it’s not easy to break into the field unless know some insider secrets, and how
to shoot images that will sell.
Second: There is only one
quick and easy way to become established in the industry, but it does require
that you are able to string two or three basic sentences together. I’m talking
about travel photography in general and the Photo Essay in particular.
In order for a photograph
to sell, to be acceptable for publication, it has to incorporate three basic
components: good composition, perfect exposure, and proper focus. There’s also a
fourth component that will turn even a relatively mediocre image into a highly
saleable one: people. Most of the images you see in the glossy magazines have
people in them. People add human interest to a scene.
So, let’s take a look at
all this in a little more detail:
First, what do I mean by
good composition? Well, regardless of what you might hear from the so-called
experts and artists, good composition, as far as publication is concerned, means
fairly strict adherence to the rules – the rule of thirds in particular (yes, I
know, it’s not really a rule at all). Editors and advertisers want images that
are visually pleasing. Visually pleasing means good balance and a direct path
into the picture that leads the eye to subject, or dominant point of interest.
This means using such basic compositional tools as framing, leading lines,
curves, patterns interrupted, diagonals, and so on.
Perfect exposure means you
must consistently achieve a good balance between highlight and shadow details:
not always an easy thing to achieve, especially in a high contrast situation.
Highlights should not be washed out and there should be at least some detail in
the shadow areas.
For an image to be
properly focused, at least for publication, it must acceptably sharp from
foreground to infinity. That means using
hyperfocal focusing to get as much of
the image into focus as possible. Editors will not accept images (especially
travel images) in which the foreground is fuzzy.
As to adding people: well,
instead of waiting for people to leave your picture, how about waiting for them
to walk into it? Now, you should also know that this is not a hard-and-fast
rule. Plenty of images will sell without people in them. But just take a look
through any of the major travel publications and you will see that most of the
photographs in them include people. It stands to reason, then, that people sell
pictures.
Ok, now that you know what
makes a salable photograph, let’s take a quick look at the photo essay.
The photo essay is nothing
more than a collection of related photographs tied together with short
chunks of text – extended captions.
By “related” I mean
related to each other as well as to the subject. A typical photo essay might
contain as few as four great images or as many as a dozen, depending upon the
subject. The text that ties them together might be as short as 50 or 60 words,
or it might be as long as three or four hundred words.
A typical “travel” photo
essay could be a bout a particular place or even a half-dozen places. For
instance: “”Country Roads of Ireland,” “10 Best New Hideaways in Europe,”
“London Bed & Breakfasts,” French Cajun Country,” “Outdoor Paris Restaurants,”
“Six New Caribbean Inns,” “Touring Shakespeare Country,” Touring the English
Cotswolds,” Museum Hopping in London.” All of those are photo essays that have
appeared in some of the world’s leading travel magazines. The last three are
mine.
Now, here’s the big
secret: photo essays are the fast-track to a professional career because 1)
editors love them, 2) they are quick and easy to produce, 3) they will sell and
resell many times, and 4) just one good photo essay per month (just 5 or 6 day’s
work) properly marketed, will provide you with an income of at least $20,000 per
year, and that’s a conservative estimate. Two articles a month and….
But that’s not all. There
are some real perks to becoming a professional travel photojournalist (yes,
that’s what it’s called). These include free travel, free accommodations when
traveling, free meals, and free access to the world’s most exotic locations and
attractions. Now, when I say perks, these have to be earned. The title and the
perks DO NOT come for free. Only when you become a credible, published
photographer will you be entitled to them.
The more essays you
publish, the more your credibility will increase. The more credibility you have,
the more you will publish and the more perks you will earn. There’s a story
about me going around. It says that “Blair hasn’t paid for a hotel stay in
Florida for more than 10 years.” Well, that’s not entirely true. What it should
say is that “Blair hasn’t paid for a hotel stay anywhere in world for more than
10 years.”
As I write this I have
contracts in hand for 4 new books – two are new editions of old books, and two
are brand new books. Those four contracts will take me back to the Bahamas and
Bermuda many times over the next 12 to 18 months. My outlay will be only pennies
on the dollar compared to the actual costs of those visits. And what could be
better than to be able to travel, whenever I like, to the exotic,
tropical paradises that I love most of all.
Here’s the kicker: I have
all of this because of the photo essay. I learned how to produce them, and then
sell and resell them, more than 20 years ago and I’ve never stopped producing
them since the light went on way back in 19….
Now, as you will have
noticed, all of the above depends upon some fairly in-depth knowledge of 1)
basic photographic techniques and skills, 2) the ability to string a couple of
sentences together, 3) marketing (the ability to sell and resell the essays), 4)
the publishing industry in general, and 5) how to make a detailed plan and then
work it diligently.
This is knowledge you may
or may not already have. If you have it, great, all you need to do now is
implement it and start out on your new career. If you don’t already have it, you
can learn it. In fact, I would venture to say that you could be on your way to a
new career in as little as three months, and you could be earning extra cash
along the way.
So, how do you learn?
Now for a shameless plug:
We teach it as part of the
live workshops
we conduct around the world ours is a “show them how
to do it,” and “teach them how to make money doing it,” approach, and it works.
And, of course, there’s our work-at-home course:
The Photo Essay.
where you can learn how to turn your images into the photo essays that editors
love to buy and publish. If you think you're not quite there yet, that your
photography skills need a little improving, we'll teach you how to
Take Amazing Photographs
too.
And, if
you've not yet signed up for our free newsletter, you should. It's published
every two weeks and it's crammed full of good information. You can subscribe on
our home page.
This is not rocket
science, folks. It does work, and it works well. Renate and I are living proof
that it does. Anyone, with some basic photographic skills, the ability to
string a couple of sentences together (and even that can be learned), and an
overwhelming desire to make it in the business, can do it.
Blair Howard
is a professional photojournalist
www.blairhoward.com and chief creative officer and instructor of digital
photography at www.AIOPonline.org.
This article is copyright
© Blair Howard 2006. All rights reserved. You can
reprint this article for free but you must retain the internal links and the
credit line at the bottom of the article intact.
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