Lessons

Lesson Info

Submitting Your Work

So it's quite an accomplishment and very exciting to be published in a magazine seeing your work and print is a great feeling, but when it's something you've never done before, it can seem very overwhelming and then the most people don't even bother okay, so this is just a little bit of examples of work my work has been in, um one of these magazines I think it's from spain ones from like the uk um this is what I'm talking about with social media because these people would have never even seen me if it wasn't for facebook or whatever it was that they found me on the rules change from published publication to publication and the beth best thing to do is your research on the block and magazine itself so there are fashion bloggers like I said, there's fashion bloggers that's another really strong area that, you know, get you work on there and talk about how to get to find that but, um it all you know, everyone has their own set of rules pretty much every magazine has its own little specifi...

c rules and it could get a little frustrating sometimes if you're not paying attention to them. So um when submitting an idea to a magazine wait a second you're not the actual shoot um you know, this's okay, so for this kind of thing if there is not a submission guidelines sometimes you can pitch an idea to a magazine so when you want to get into a specific magazine york you know you can contact them and it's having a simple mood board like the mood board that I showed you guys before I could help when pitching an idea to them so try to include a title um as well if it's something you might change later you can help it can help when you're discussing ideas with team on they can use the title as a reference so you know the middle image here so this this middle shot here bunk when I did this editorial with a friend of mine we were trying to figure out the title and we had all kinds of weird names for it and came up with this and it just it's stuck with the magazine and the thing is I think he ended up that the original name was something else and we weren't getting it published like and then just the title itself somehow changed the whole perception of the editorial so I'm titles khun play a really important part um the thing is to is that some magazines will change your title um but it's just you know anyways when you're when you want to pitch an idea to a magazine not just submit try to get a mood board together also the magazines sometimes they like to see an image of the model that you're planning to use so you can create, you know, make sure the agents okay with you just sending a little bio shot or putting it on the board and create this a digital board, you don't have toe create a physical hardboard and, like, meal it to them or anything, just that's probably the easiest way to do it pay attention to the submission guidelines, okay? I said that a few times pay attention to the submission guidelines that's, like the most important thing, do not be discouraged when submitting, and you don't hear anything back first, make sure that you completely followed the magazine's guidelines. If you don't, the magazine usually will not accept the shoot, even if it's great work. I am not even I don't even take my own advice because I will to shoot and I'm like, this is gonna get picked up, I know it and you know and time goes by and nobody's taking it because I'm not taking the time to read what the magazine wants. A lot of times, they're so specific that you just you gotta really pay attention to it, so sometimes you're like, do not send us more than seven photos do not you know, we do not want any high end brands we on ly want local design owners we don't want local desires like you know it's just so crazy they all have their own way of doing things so if you have any magazines in mind I would I would suggest picking a few that you like right and look at what they read what they're looking for magazines will tell you way ahead of time what they want usually some don'thave submission garden and someone just a free for all um that's fine but you want the ones that are more established and do have those guidelines because it's tougher to get into them so I would start you know from the lower point and then just build your way up um where to submit so not every magazine will accept submissions like I said to save yourself any confusion make sure that the magazine actually accept submissions and read them carefully don't I keep saying read the submission you just have to read those guidelines but some of them don't they do not you know and you're sending and work over and over and they're just ignoring you on your leg why but because it's probably because they don't they won't take them they don't do it that way bigger magazines like elle and vogue are paid from the designer for advertising space so a lot of times people sometimes like they don't understand and we'll be doing is shooting you know somebody will say to me like we get these in vogue can you send these to l like, oh, can we get into like, you know, harper's bazaar, whatever and I I'm like no it's doesn't work that way it's it's a total turn around so with big, high and magazines the way it works is, you know, say chanel perfume wants to create a campaign, chanel will go to an agent and get a high end photographer, they'll hire the photographer, do the campaign campaign is done, they contact vogue, they pay vogue thousands of dollars to put one page in the magazine or whatever it isthe same same thing with a designer, the designer, you know, I don't know who will say calvin klein, everybody knows that is he wants to create a editorial campaign for his new line, the same thing he gets a photographer there, the ones working out money to get into those big eyes. So those air not submission base and, you know, like, there may come a point your life where you get to that, where you getting hired from a big high end client? So this is why it's important to get submitted, get work published because people see that you're working your way up there and you've worked with magazines and and, you know, clients up along the way with designers and whatever also, yep, um so fashion blog's, this is a good one, it's not it's, not a magazine, but it's really good to try to get onto there because this is the same thing as the social media they they will blawg and link you, and a lot of times they have a large audience following them, and people will go looking for you if they love your work. So excuse me, there are many photography and fashion blog's, not just fashion. I'm sorry for talking the blog's to pay more attention to fashion bloggers, like I said, because they're usually always up to date with fashion trends and magazines. Um, magazines a typist to go to google this is this is how I do it. So when you go to google, you type in fashion magazine submission, ok, they will just lead you straight away to the submission page of many magazines. You don't need to go be looking at magazine all fashion magazine because you're just wasting a lot of time. I finally figured out like just a type of those specific keywords, and all that happens is, like you's get lists and lists of their direct submission page, and you can go check out the submission page read it, you know, first, you know you're right there on submission page, just goal browse around the website go back to the page if you if you're interested in getting your work in that magazine so any questions anyone has her uh financially ok anything in here yeah yeah first started submitting did you get picked up right away or did it take a long time you have somebody get to publish you yeah it did like it could take it took a while it took me a little while to understand the rules of submitting like I wasn't getting any of that and so this is a lot of times why people end up not getting their work picked up because they're not paying attention like I said to the guidelines or not changing the clothing and whatnot and I still don't get response I'm still waiting I'm I've been sending out like certain editorials like how many times and they're not getting picked up it doesn't matter you know who you are you know people you just it just this is ongoing thing so yeah I got a question from suzanne from germany it fr a couple other people all wanting to talk about exclusivity. So when you know when you publish with some magazines they required to be exclusive where they're the only ones publishing it for a certain amount of time or whatever that's the question is do you submit to multiple places at the same time and how do you deal then with that question of exclusivity yeah, I do, I do submit sometimes like there's say I have a magazine in mind, I will try them first. I'll give it a few days if I don't hear anything, then I'll try and reach out to a few others and probably usually at the same time most the time on ly one will write back, so I've never really run into that problem when I run, I have like a mild little online magazine that I run with a couple friends of mine and, um there's been times we've accepted editorials on dh, then we don't hear back and the photographer will write us back saying that, oh, no, like this magazine published every source I'm sorry would you still want to publish it or not? And we usually just pull out. We're like, well, no what's the point, so usually magazines do they wanted exclusive to them and a lot of times not every time, but I've I've put out work on my page and magazines don't usually like that like, if I just post a photo, I have post a sneak peak, they don't use you like that, but most the time, it depends on what the point like what I'm trying to do with the photos, but they will accept it but just know that most of them don't like it. They're like why'd you post that photo and you know that I can't give them that as part of the editorial usually I have to create something else teo put in its place so if you're looking to submit something, don't post it anywhere beforehand not not really no it's just sometimes do but no, you shouldn't do that okay, cool yeah on then just a question on like kind of strategy so let's say that you submitted toe to toe three to four places at once to people comeback tio maybe one magazine is a bigger name and bigger subscription base, but the other one is smaller and so you're likely to have more opportunities to work with them in the future. Where is the big one is probably more of a one time thing. Where do you go? Where do you as far as when you're strategizing how to get your name really recognized you go for the big subjection one time or do you go for the one that you might get more features in the future? Yeah, I would go for the big one because that's your chance right there, right? You gotta take it when the doors open because the smaller guys you know, like you can always come back to them and they're usually a little more welcoming with the bigger magazines, the bigger they get the the harder it is to get into them so once that door opens I'll I'll grab it yeah yeah I like it on maybe just really quick going back to the question of titles eyes landfall was wondering if you'd just have any tips for deciding on a title for for your editorials says a minor always terrible miner yeah no levels are horrible for me teo really dislike trying to name certain things so what helps me is I will think of the concept of the editorial or some kind of elements in there the reason like that last one was called punk I think he came up with that finally because of the hair it was all punks and it was like we had like coloring blue and pink and her hair and she really didn't look punk but it was like an element that was put in there and so he just named that finally I don't even remember what the names were before but titles air really tough it's a good idea to get get suggestions from people sometimes thoroughly corny but from like maybe a certain title you khun re think of it and another way but I don't know I couldn't just say just keep trying tow oh and here's another thing I do for titles I will go into the um like online the source that was called or urban dictionary I'll go on there a lot and sometimes it was like even a sight so I can't think of the name was something to do with fairy tales it's like of the source but it's very till words and if I'm doing a serial shooting I'll type in a certain word and it will bring up all these other descriptive words and it helps me think of titles that way so if you're really stuck you khun do it look on there and get some ideas so you're going yeah I've done some submissions and I have gotten one or two things published in my last editorial that I was trying to submit I got if only a few responses back but both of these particular magazines were saying you know we like your editorial and then there's a fee well could be published now it's like you and I was like oh so how do you feel about actually like paying I guess it's a sure way to get published but then are you really no it really worth it no uh I've been talking about that fee thing for a long time I I sent some work into a magazine I won't name them but they did the same they're like how we really love it and it's yours just designing fee I'm like what are you talking about? No thank you forget it like I just straight away I was like no so I don't think it's first of all we're spending the money and time and doing all this stuff, things are kind of starting a goal in a reverse effect, and a lot of photographers, especially new ones who really want to get published think that this is what they have to be doing there, too scared to ask anyone else there, they don't want to sound stupid, so they just go ahead. And I I know a few people who actually have paid a fee to get in the magazine it's, if he could be fifty box one hundred, two hundred, and I'm even more than that. Yeah, I think that is unbelievable and it's just garbage, I would suggest to not pay any money. I will never do that ever, so don't do it, love it, love it. Strong response. Yeah, it could be a couple quickly while we're on the subject of money here, because obviously, you know, hitting a court out there is landfall, says has amended ever published with smaller online magazines just start up independent publications. I know there are a lot out there are they were submitting tio the long, same lines chloe g photo from england. How long did it take for you to get paid to shoot a magazine peace? Would you say exposure is more important to start with? Have free publications led to paid work so what's the strategy or do you start out by just getting exposure? Not getting paid for it. And then that's how you start bringing in print work? Yeah. So a lot of case. So there's, a little miss comes conception with that. Magazines don't usually have a big budget to be paying photographers like independent magazines. Anything that's not vogue and v magazine. And anything that you see is a common mary claire. All that. Those air, the commercial guys, those there's a big guys, the money. You know, like I said, people are paying to get in there. That's a different situation because it's a big client paying for campaign when it's little magazines, an independent magazines there is not a really like a big budget, the budget will be maybe to cover some costs, like some material or what? Not usually they're not really paying you to get your work in there. That's not really. How that works is just enough to cover certain things. So it is important to be starting off with little magazines because that's, you have to start from down here. You're not going to just start getting into the bigger guys, so it is important you have to start building your work and like I said as you go you get more published work, you start taken out the old stuff you put more stuff and he just kind of keep stacking on that way but it is important to start little because that's where we all have toe begin it's not you know it's not easy is a lot of work involved with that saw um so search magazine lists um they have hundreds of magazines and you can search use the search bar for example you can put fashion you can type in independent fashion magazine like I said the submission thing type in magazine lists model mayhem. Um if you type in magazine lists usually like in google google will bring you over to these long forums and all these people are like putting in chunks of different magazines like off that they all know all these photographers were like try this this this is this is this is like they they added in there just remember that some of those air old check the dates of in the forum like if it's like from two thousand eleven magazines they come and go um they're not always they don't stay in publication right? Like I had started mine like I said, I started sugar kiss magazine that was up for a few public a few sorry a few seasons of it like we had I had summer fall winter and then I I stopped it because the magazine was doing fine, but I was doing it all by myself and people kept somebody work to me and some people would be getting like a little bit like mad and irritated thinking I just had to stop responding, so understand that not all magazine stay out and you could be sending work to them and they could be done you know when you don't even realize it, so you got to realize and pay attention to when you're looking for magazine lists how old that list even is, but I've found plenty magazines on there and another little sneaky thing you can do is go on to like other photographers pages websites I wouldn't fit sneaky but it's just a quick and fast way to find stuff look at their published work because they will list their magazines that they've been on and you can easily find stuff that way to, um there's just all kinds of ways to search them all. So this is another site this's made cloud dot com um the site it hosts independent online magazines as well as print with many different categories. So say you, um, not just fashion, but say you you know, you just shot like a themed wedding shoot and you want to get it published and you got two models that the common thing that a lot of photographers will do you can go to make cloud dot com like I said not just for fashion and type and you know, wedding fashion or typing things like that and there's other ways you can get your work published with them um there is yeah so just searched the different categories there's a lot of stuff on there just make sure you're finding like I said things that aren't dead because when they're just sitting there you're going to be wasting all your time trying to reach out to them um not everything that's pulled down when it's when it's been squashed so the same goes for issue dot com this is another website just like my cloud and issue now before issue never offered a print option and now they do they used to everything used to be either online and then we would have to go from issue you'd have to take that same publication that you've built like I'm talking from the public the publisher side and you'd have to go over to make cloud and reloaded up there and you have to have two different it accounts but now they both offer online in print so most magazines on their will offer ah print version too which is it is important but online is just as important it still to me is equally the same so now the thing is social media um you could find plenty of resources through social media twitter, instagram and facebook for example, you can type in again fashion magazine and you will find tons of listings so that's you know I always keep talking about social media but that's a big thing and it's really important to ah keep searching things on here don't be afraid to ask other photographers or people if they have any suggestions or ideas because you know what most the time people are willing to share and and let you know things that you're trying to figure out just just don't overdo it either don't bug him too much but you reach out to other photographers so the last thing is research your industry research the style of photography like to shoot it's very helpful to search trends and lighting style editing techniques, fashion trends and so on look at the specific style of the magazine and examined examine what type of work they are looking for so I would not you know, try to get you know there's a magazine out there and it's say it zinc for example oh, they're they're really well known their independent but they are also on the stands they always want hard, edgy, raw, nude like that kind of thing and I don't shoot that kind of stuff so I would never even bother really putting my work in with them maybe now like that was a couple years ago I probably last looked at their stuff they might have changed at this point, so make sure make sure you pay attention to what that magazine is even publishing don't try to put in, you know a little fairy princess editorial into something like that because again you're wasting your time you're only going to like you hurt yourself and you're you're feeling discouraged and let down but you're not, you know, analyzing what it is that they actually want so just pay attention to that awesome okay got a few more questions to ask here, so we'll start off with one from links and sandra m and lexi are all kind of wondering about some of the legal aspects do when you submit to a magazine do you hand over all the copyrights do you hand over our do you retain any rights for your own use and then specifically how do you actually is there a contract signed? Do you do that contract yourself? Do you have an agent or a lawyer or someone who doesn't for you could talk a little bit about the legal aspects of submitting the magazines? Yeah, okay just varies again from magazine to magazine, so there was a magazine announced a little something that happened I won't name them, but um I did a shoot with this model and she took these photos and sent them in because she was friends with a big magazine in new york city she took these photos, and to me it was a really big shocker cause these guys were established and I mean established like, very well known magazine. She sent our photos to them and it was my own fault. I did not have her sign anything because I wasn't thinking that this would have happened, and she just freely handed over my pictures to them because she wanted to be in the magazine without telling me. I started seeing things on their instagram account on their facebook page on their web site, all my work not credited, nothing, just her little modelling name and her instagram feed are in scram handle or whatever. So I lost my mind and I flipped out on her and I you know, I had to go through a lot of hell to get those pictures taken down. Yeah, they were in a big magazine. Well, good, but who cares? What does that mean for me? Nobody even knew there are my photos, and what really upset me was that I was unlike on their social site on their facebook page on dh this picture but oh god, like I don't even know account remember it was like over twenty thousand likes on it and, like sixteen hundred shares and all this stuff and that whole like that all happened and it was just without any knowledge like any kind of you know knowledge or anything given to me it was just a waste and I had to I was texting her I had to like I actually called a lawyer and the lawyer had to send me this information to reed I had to send her this this thing about this new law that there's out with with us is photographers the rights that we have with copyright you can't even people can't even be blogging your work without your permission it happens so often it's just really time consuming to fight that because people sometimes take my work still they will take my work and post it on instagram and put some saying overtop like right over the model's face I've caught my work so many times and it's really a crappy thing to deal with so this isn't my own fault that I'm not getting people to sign things and I have to start making sure that I do that from this point on because now my work is out there so much that people are just freely taken it and doing what they want you at all nothing so had they credited you would you have demanded that they take those images down or because it is exposure it is exposure if they credited me but they didn't even ask me they nothing she just went ahead and to me it was just so weird that this established company big time millions of followers on their fan page like that they would do something like that and it happens and they just think, oh, who cares? And I had to actually like the thing was they weren't even they didn't even care like I was like writing messages I was getting people to go on there and like, back me up all this stuff they could care less until I told her I took that clip from the lawyer the little layout about the copyright thing and I sent I screen captured at descended to her I'm like if those pictures are not down by tonight I'm calling a lawyer like I had to get really like hard core with it and then she I guess she was like, scared and it just it just turned into a big drama case and so so just remember to him protect yourself that way yes it's important to have people sign things, especially the models because you know, if you don't tell them I had a time and I just didn't assume that that wasn't gonna happen and it did so yeah, hopefully that answered, I don't know answer their question I don't always get people to sign stuff and I know that's a bad thing, but I've learned my lesson from that so any time a publication wants your work, usually they will send you uh their own agreement and I never hand out they never get full rights to my photos no they're just sharing my photos and that's all it is after they've published my work I will post what I want after those they still belong to us the photographer say if they are asking for that for those full rights than it's probably not worth if they're not paying you if they've not funded the whole thing if it's not a client like do you know that I mean it's not if it's just in editorial you've created no they should not have any full rights it's a little different situation if it's an actual client who's funded you know like you know let's say like beats music beats headphones like if they were to hire you then that is there that's that belongs to them but when I say that when it's just creative work no it's ours and it belongs to us forever so yeah, I think we have another question or yeah so amanda um of course we all want have newsstands publishing right now when it comes to online only online with the option to print on demand yeah uh do you think that has much value as understand? Um well, in the beginning it does have a cz much value because you're trying to build your your published work up so you know what don't don't I wouldn't turn my my face away from that kind of thing it's still important to get that even magazines even right now like they they'll accept a submission on its online onley and I'm still ok with it because they've got tons of people looking at their work and you know what? A lot of times what happens is you get into a magazine just like us is photographers were watching other photographers will magazines watch each other too, and I will get other publications reaching out to me and it kind of creates like, a little bit of ah chain affect our so I would I would say yes, like still keep doing that. The other thing is like printing on demand you get you're getting your tear sheets and if you ever want to keep, you know you want to go right into a agency that that looks for photographers that you know, like I said, when a big company goes to an agent to look at a photographer um those are the agents you need to go on with your book, and if you have those tear sheets, they like to see that too right either print or through on your ipad or whatever it is you have so yep screen to build it up ah, back in the past it used to be that you need to carry around a physical book with all your printed photos do you think that there's still a need for a printed portfolio and if so in what situations do you like send that in to somebody as opposed to just sending them to your website yeah I don't know about sending it in I would go see them like in like I said where I city I live in it's not really necessary it depends on where you are so if you're like heading out to l a and you want to start dealing with the big guys or what in new york and you want to find it agent it's it's I think it's important to have those tear sheets its people still do it now it's just like you know a lot of people like to read a book physically rather than on a kindle right so it's the same thing like they like to look through your work and see it like a legit tearsheet are alleged publication a lot of times now photographers do carry around ipad's with her portfolio on their asses well so there they do both and I would suggest to keep doing both yeah and a couple of folks had jumped in the chat room to kind of share some specifics about copyright law on their country so it is kind of important tio make the disclaimer that cover right law does change from control the entry and since we do have an international audience take this all with a grain of salt grand talk to a lawyer in your country in the research to make sure that all the copyright issues specifically yeah that's that's true yeah because just in canada it only just had just gotten put into place like this past I can't remember it wasn't even a year ago so it was a big big you know, celebration with photographers because they they put it into place where you know it became illegal to be taking any of our work without our permission for anything like even to block it you're not even allowed to do that and it happens and you're not going to catch everything but when you do your it's a good thing to fight it I don't know how the us I'm not sure I yes I should've mentioned that but yeah in canada I know that some were protected that way and also okay, I've got maybe one or two more here mean we could go on forever no that's cool and finally you want to hit and then we're gonna we're up up for the day. Yeah edward franco photography what do you do in a situation where magazine except your work and asked to use in a future issue but you haven't seen it published after a few months what's the etiquette as far as enquiring about images that were accepted but have not been published yet yeah, I've done that I've had have dealt with that a few times, actually they say they take my work and months go by, the next issue comes out and I'm still not seeing my work and I don't know what's going on, so I e mail them and you know they'll come back and say, oh, something that got pulled back all we had to pull it out this not don't be afraid to ask them because they like even for example, what happened is the last issue I had put out with our magazine we had there was just a little bit of a confusion there was a submission we accepted and then it was put into a folder and we just completely forgot her submission and she reached out to us and we were both like, oh my god, like we just forgot so things happen, right? It's not always deliberate, so don't be afraid to ask them what's going on if if they tell you that your work is accepted and you don't see it come out, reach out and like, you know what? Just sometimes he decided they're not going to publish it just forget it and move on because it's not worth getting into an argument of order or anything like that just take that, take your work and try to submit it elsewhere yeah I love it all right let's go with that I think we've got time for maybe one final question but go ahead and ask us quick so amanda there some magazines which I submitted to sell shoots where you know they're like would love to put it in our blawg but not in the magazine because the lodge with daily thing they look for congress now would you hold onto that shoot those images and resubmit another magazine or if you put on the block radish more share a bowl on social media would you rather go that way yeah um it depends on the blogger I think it depends on how much of ah like how much of popularity that magazine itself has so if it's just like something you think it's not really worth it you can pull out you can just say you know what? That's okay like I think I'm just gonna try to submit these I'll try to smith to you guys again down the road but if the block has a large following and it's a pretty popular one I would say yeah, go ahead and if you still want to try to get them published on the road just mention that to the magazines say this was blogged but it wasn't published like you know, maybe if you'd be interested in considering it's still kind of a thing and usually usually that that work so just it's all in your discretion write thie other thing I was going to say is like I don't I didn't have it in here but the one thing to do is when you're reaching out to a magazine they are looking for not always but sometimes it's a good thing to develop some type of like relationship with the magazine first let them know who you are reach out and say I do I would love to so an easy way that I do think sometimes if I want to kind of get them to notice my work but I know I have nothing for them at the moment I will uh email them and I'll say I am I love your magazine I would love to create some work for you guys down the road and I've loved submit somewhere can you you know, just check out my portfolio if you if you like it you know like anything specific that you like and they're just let me know when I'd love to recreate an editorial a lot of them like that they like that because they there's no pressure for them to like tell you yes or no or anything like that they just look at your work and it's opened quite a few doors for me I've reached out to them that way and so I didn't have it on here but that's another thing you guys could could do is like either have them going right to your site or send them first pay attention to the kind of thing that kind of style that they like gather a pan full of images, maybe five and send them some work and say, this is some of my work I just want youto you know, I wanted to show you guys the style of work I do when I would absolutely love to have a chance to be in your magazine, butter them up and let them know, you know, you do like their stuff and you really want to get in there and whatever you can do to get it, you know, I left you, you know, just don't don't say how much can I pay you because you shouldn't be paying, but yeah, so that's another another way you could do that. Fantastic and one more. Elisa manav is kind of wondering about just getting started being a fashion, and I'm going to add fine art, I'm gonna add all the kind of different types of work you do photographer, so as you're starting out, how do you know when you're ready to publish? How do you know when you're ready to start submitting? Um, can you give some advice? Just two people who are just getting started have that dream in that passion and want to make it happen, but again are just getting started yep um like I said when you start feeling a little more confident in your work um I would say you don't ever know if you keep waiting and thinking like I gotta wait gotta wait no I'm not ready you know you're never going to be ready you're never gonna know that you're ready to do anything so don't be afraid to submit your work if you get turned down just learn from it I think and then look back at what you've gotten think okay, I gotta make my work stronger what do I need to do and just kind of keep moving forward don't you know stay there and give it up because a lot of people just give it up they don't they're like well, I've submitted to ten magazines and nobody's saying anything nobody even cares and they're not responding, so screw it, I'm done I don't care anymore and like, you know, flailing arms everywhere it happens and I've seen it so many times I've seen it through the years. The only difference is is like those people gave things, they gave it up and they pulled out of whatever their dream was and I just kind of had to keep jumping back on the road right? Like so you're never going to know you're ready if you don't just go ahead and try and