Maui Wedding Photographer

Selling Your Photography To Agencies.

Have you ever tried to sell your images to an agency.

Anyone
with the ability to use a camera correctly has the potential to sell
their images. Picture agencies handle images of every subject and are
always looking for emerging talent.

Pictures
libraries and stock agencies are in the business of selling images. The
don’t give you advice on how to take better images. Their purpose is
business – they sell images to magazines, book publishers, the travel
industry and many other industries that use images.

Many
photographers look upon agencies as a last resort to sell their work;
if you have been unable to sell any of your images, the chances are
that most agencies won’t accept them.

If
you are interested in an agency selling your images, you must be able
to produce high quality images which are suited to the agencies market.
Check out their website to view samples that are currently in use.
If you feel your work meets their standards and suits their customers -
then approach them by e-mail or by standard mail.

But,
before placing your work at an agency make a short-list of the agencies
that seem to suit your work. Contact each agency outlining your work
and which magazines have already published your images. If an agency is
then interested they will ask you to send them samples.

If an agency accepts your work, don’t take this as a guarantee that your images will sell.

Don’t
approach an agency until you have a large collection of images. Minimum
first submissions can consist of anything from 50 images to 500 and
regular submissions are normally required thereafter. Most agencies
work on a commission basis – 50 % being the standard rate. If an image
sells for two hundred euro – the photographer receives a one hundred
euro fee.

When
an agency takes on a photographer’s work, they normally require a four
or five year retention period. Agencies normally sell the reproduction
rights of a pictures – the image being licensed to a buyer for a
specified purpose.

It
may take as long as six months before an agency sells a picture
belonging to you. First they need to scan your images if they are
submitted by film; then they need to contact their clients and let them
know that there is new material available – all of this takes time, so
you must look at supplying a picture agency as a long term investment.
It is only when you have several hundred images placed in a library
that you’ll start to see regular sales.

Remember:
agencies can’t sell images if there isn’t a market for them and placing
images at an agency does not guarantee you sales.

You’ve heard this before: Digital cameras do all the work. You just push the button and great pictures magically appear. The better the camera, the better the photos. Isn’t that right? Heck no!

The truth is that you can make great photos with a simple consumer point-and-shoot camera, or take lousy shots with the most expensive Canon. It’s not the camera that makes beautiful images; it’s the photographer. With a little knowledge and a willingness to make an adjustment here and there, you can squeeze big time photos out of the smallest digicam.

To help you down the road to great image making, here are ten tips that will enable you shoot like a pro (without maxing out your credit card on all that expensive equipment).

1. Warm Up Those Tones

Have you ever noticed that your shots sometimes have a cool, clammy feel to them? If so, you’re not alone. The default white balance setting for digital cameras is auto, which is fine for most snapshots, but tends to be a bit on the “cool” side.

When shooting outdoor portraits and sunny landscapes, try changing your white balance setting from auto to cloudy. That’s right, cloudy. Why? This adjustment is like putting a mild warming filter on your camera. It increases the reds and yellows resulting in richer, warmer pictures.

If you don’t believe me, then do a test. Take a few outdoor shots with the white balance on auto, then take the same picture again with the setting on cloudy. Upload the images to your computer and look at them side by side. My guess is that you’ll like the warmer image better.

2: Sunglasses Polarizer

If you really want to add some punch to your images, then get your hands on a polarizing filter. A polarizer is the one filter every photographer should have handy for landscapes and general outdoor shooting. By reducing glare and unwanted reflections, polarized shots have richer, more saturated colors, especially in the sky.

What’s that you say? Your digital camera can’t accommodate filters. Don’t despair. I’ve been using this trick for years with my point-and-shoot cameras. If you have a pair of quality sunglasses, then simply take them off and use them as your polarizing filter. Place the glasses as close to the camera lens as possible, then check their position in the LCD viewfinder to make sure you don’t have the rims in the shot.

Which way do I go?