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Submitting and Pitching; Business Q&A

Pitch in on submitting your work to magazines and I think this is a really important element because I know when I first saw the fashion photography this was something that I wanted to know and no one gave any information on it anywhere so I feel it's important I share this knowledge with you so you know how best to approach that certain situation editorial work before we go into that what is editorial or editorial work and why does it matter? So why it matters is an outlet to publish personal work gateway into commission work if you have editorial work and you don't have any advertising clients or professional climbs putting editorial work in tash it's in front of them is going to convince them that you are okay to the job that you can work under somebody else also increases your recognition as well. So it's tim son he's always browsing free magazines he's always going through finding out who the next photographer is everyone does that in the industry when they have the time they go f...

ree magazines they go through the tear sheets especially for like the independent magazines because people know everyone in the top level of magazines they know the top photography is already they want to find people who like tim said who are at the cusp and they want to know that they want to be the next magazine that takes on that next famous photographer so editorial work matters for elise different reasons they're pitching and submitting I think this exists in the two different things commission basis submission basis business model for higher profile magazines so when you're doing a commission for a shoot, this is when the concept has been assigned or approved by the magazine okay, so that our editor the fashion editor whoever is that the magazine if the one that is saying okay, we want this photographer for the job the concept has already been approved it's also a guaranteed publication about ninety five percent of the very small chance that it might not fit if it doesn't work out or something goes incredibly wrong. But most of the time this is a guaranteed publication so this is where you want to aim because if you do something on submission basis and they don't accept it it's a little bit of a waste of your time. So this is where you have to aim with editorial work you want editorial clients coming to you for this and not this but I still do both because it's important to keep doing that keep the wheels time in flight magazine organizes the shoot well, so you're not the one going out there the magazine is the one who is the director, but again you were the one who is putting your photographic I n so you need to be somewhat in control even though they are organized in the shoot, magazine should also cover the expenses and this again ninety five percent of the time they will they'll say ok, can you do this story for me? I want it like I'm organizing it we have this much of a budget and this is howe and they want you to go through and say how much he would take how much the location would take on all that kind of thing as well submission basis and this is a business model for most independent magazine's online magazines, independent magazines, so they expect people because they want free content. They don't have a lot of money themselves to exist because the public publishing industry isn't doing as well right now. So the thing is, when people have money for editorial work, it goes mort and leans more towards the commission basis when people have money for submissions, it's about ten percent of the time when you get it, so a submission is a shoot the human, perhaps of submitted or they've asked you to shoot basically, so you've submitted it to the magazine or you've shot it and then later submitted that theme to the magazine no guarantee of publication and this is very scary because you could spend like three, five hundred dollars in expenses out of your own pocket, the studio for food, for maybe bucking a proper something on the shoot for travel, and then you send it to the magazine and they'll say, uh, it's not what we're going for on the most annoying thing about that is they give you no warning and that's it, they cut off all contact, and this happens because the fingers there's so many people offering free content that people no longer want to pay. So the main thing again, try when you're doing it. It's good to work on submissions, but always be aware that there's that no guarantee guarantee when that happens to me, and I will admit it still does because there's that many people in the industry that just want to have their choice and if something doesn't look perfect, then I have another person that will come in that happens, I'll use that work in my portfolio. I'll put it on my website so it's not a total waste of my time. I'll give that to the model agency is a way of saying there's a benefit from the shoot for you as well. It's, also mainly organized by the photographer. So you're going out there in organizes, organizing the shoot from start to finish from anything from, um, arranging the cool time location. Um the food, everything on board is organized by you, so it is time consuming. So it's important to factor in how much time, how much investment you're going to put into this. And is it worth it for your portfolio? Photographer covers those expenses again. I just wantto go through from examples off editorial and commission work. So these two examples of editorial that existed for me this was paper cut magazine we spoke to yesterday. This was my first cover, them one of my first ever covers, um, at the start of my career. So what was great about this is no, they have no budget to shoot, but that's okay, because I'm keen to get the publication, I'm keen to get the front cover. The good thing about doing editorial is it allows you to get better models have better team because they're wanting to get the tax sheet as well. The observer magazine is a magazine we have in london, and they have the budget even though it's not that much. They have something to give for the production, the location, the food on the shoot, the travel so you may come away with two hundred dollars, you may come away with four hundred. You may come away with nothing. It all depends on how much of that budget you want into this, and I feel that's important sometimes to come away with nothing if it means you're going to get a great cover shot, for example, of tear sheets, because I know some of you may want to know exactly what attache is, so the tachyons exist inside the publication and what's great is you have the credits of the clothing down here, and this is what people want to see. They want to see how you work works with designing layouts, how well you've executed the shoot, but they also want to see what was it for? What was the purpose of the shoot? They want to see that it meant something, so three steps to submit it on pitching do your research number one depends on who your client is. Obviously first, do they accept submissions? It's good to know, maybe look for their website? Are they a magazine that will accept submissions? Because some magazines don't, they just commissioned the higher and magazines, and some of the independent will only do that because they want the exclusivity on my magazines and keen, they're hungry for content, for they will accept submissions. If you're unsure, just send them an email or you know, if they're available over fine, it might be a good idea if they don't get back to you, but it's just good to know. Does your work suit the magazine or client because it's pointless submitting your work to a magazine if you work has nothing to do with it like I wouldn't send my work into a travel magazine like conde nast traveller even though I've worked for brides magazine my work like works more towards that side and pretty and girly thing that itjust towards that so it's pointless finding people's email addresses and pitching your work because they're just gonna brush through it and it's a waste of everyone's time so if your work suits the magazine that's fantastic so send it across given introduction and then go from there are they open to new photographers to because people like paper cut magazine and other magazines they're emerging magazines they don't accept high end designers they want new people they want new artists involved three steps to seven in pitch in make a plan pitch first or submit later what do you want to try and do when you're first starting out trying to a shoot and submit later it's always good to do that because not only by shooting you get any chance to get in a magazine you're also learning you learn in the technicality you're working with a team your network in so even if it doesn't get in the magazine you've got all of those few things to fall back on do you know the right person to contact so maybe when you look at that the magazine and I do this. Go free the magazine figure out who the editor is, the fashion director, that our editor, those of the people or the bookings editor, those of the people you want to look at. Because those are the people who would determine the email address he wanted. Contact. Oh, if you have more of a close connection of fun cold in a name that you just mentioned, would you go to first? But it depends on the magazine, definitely. But people the fashion editor will probably be the first person the editor is the person that sees over everything, so they will be really busy. So it's probably best to go to someone specific. So most of the time it's, the fashion editor, but for larger magazines that you should like bookings, editor, fashion or even someone working into the editor as well. So the next step, the last step is approach and response. If it's as a pitch, send files, visual references and shoot information, the more information you can send without overwhelming someone is the best as a submission, send story edit as well as team on clothing addicts, because often, if I send a submission in they'll come back to me with who was the model who was the team who is the designers? Because that will determine as well where it goes to magazines should never require photographers to pay for editorial submission, and I've come across quite a few magazines lately that I've known, and I found that they're trying to do bad things by saying two new photographers who were naive that they are supposed to pay to get submitted in that magazine to pay, and it's, an online magazine on what's important is the only way that people require, like paid things is when someone like a client is paying a magazine to put advertorial in their work, but photographers should never pay the other way around. So it's, good to watch out for that. So when someone says that to you that's, not the way the industry works. So from personal editorial work to paying client, I want to show you some of my work that got me my jobs, and I want to show you that it doesn't matter the contents sometimes sometimes it's just a feeling or removed or the girls used, which will get you jobs. So I shot this when I first meet toa london, referencing back to my fine artwork. And what I found is this got me this and this was a recent campaign I did for goldsmith lifestyle shots again the concept with a little bit more controlled by the client they wanted detail they wanted sharpness in the body, the legs smooth skin. So going back to that, this kind of style is the kind of thing that got me into doing this. So when this agent this some client came to my photo agency in london, they presented that what they liked this is what we won and they were like, okay, so this is what laura can produce. So then when we did that the visual references on the sheet with my work a mood board compel with everyone else's so again sometimes personal work well come in handy even if you don't think it's aimed directly to the client. Another example this shoot for material girl magazine totally out of my own pocket. We traveled there um to jersey on dh freezing day four girls on dh I love shoots just something happened from it just came it just got really lucky I just came together on the day and then this came from that this is the stuff that I don't show in my portfolio because it's very far from what I do but people look at my work like this and see elements of light in backlighting beauty the way I capture people's faces and then they asked me to do this and this was for breast cancer tuk they did the wearing pink day that was shown around all the stores and the scores again just something fun to be involved with and using my technique of how it deepak clyde in to approach this situation too so I'm pricing your work yeah yeah people cooling questions yeah marketing wow, that was a lot of weight pricing. Sure. Okay, go ahead. So I, um let's go back to the beginning when we started to talk about your target market and finding that and irena h said so who would you say laura that your target market is and how would you recommend that people what is your own definition? And then how would you recommend that people go about figuring that out for themselves? Um I think the figuring out part comes from what I said different elements that kind of figuring out fast your styling vision and then what you want like depending on your location depending on what you ultimately want to shoot, you always should have that goal in mind even if it's far away and start from that and work towards my particular target market is definitely changing like changed over the past few years and always changing and evolve in I would say that my target market at the high end and the independent magazines right now on clients that um I can't define clients because clients always changing that style of work and looking for new different ideas as well but I would say that things like look books that kind of thing look books campaigns that kind of seat myself um more fashion campaigns and beauty because I'm more of a fashion photographer that I am a beauty photographer um and it's a wide variety of clients that was well recent recently didn't advertorial png and that came from the shots from the observer magazine how I worked with three different girls so there's a niche there for the fact that I like working with groups that clients see that and they pick up on that and they want to book me because I know how to interact with groups as well uh s photographers stephen is wondering as faras brandon goes what do you look at when brandon your photography is it website format colors design positioning of photos names brandon is a tough one to determine and to really define um that's why I kind of talked about an overall thing because I was hoping these questions would come about brandon is everything it's just exactly what you said it's the logo the website the business cards everything that is the forefront off your business before people look into your work so yeah all that comes on to design the colors the logo the fund used that all comes under the way that you present yourself to clients from cody lane, and we see this question often is, is it very important to include the word photography in your brand name and maybe just a couple of thoughts on how you name your business? Is it okay to have it be just your name or what do you think about names that are not your it's a good one? I think if you just starting out and it's not really parent that your photographer yet, I think it's important to have that somewhere whether that's in your logo, whether it's on your website so people come to your website straight away and they don't see something about photography, then they'll be like kay's stylist is is a makeup artist often I've had it where I'm going to a meeting, and this is before I had my logo. Adam, this is before I had an agent who would represent that also photographer. I'm often I going to meetings and they go, oh, I either photographer with a stylist, and they read the entire part of my book so it's important that you have people look at that and know that your photographer before, uh, tb follow from chicago is wondering how you balance licensing issues with exposure. Uh, emerging designers, I expect you to hand over a cd with all the image from the shoot so that they can use them and all their publications, etcetera. You have tips on how to communicate your ownership and how to kind of create a fair deal with other emerging artists. I think that it's very important again, that if you do a shoot with someone that these things are clear beforehand, because, um especially emerging designers and people that are not familiar with the photography industry, they're the kind of people that will expect more impossible. People in the industry have a night kind of idea of what's ideal, but people that, like emerging designers of people in small towns, they don't know what the ideal is. They don't know how much licensing goes yes on contracts for people doing it themselves know that agencies would cover that for you. So you feel like if you were to license any man to what you get, even just in a small town, working with stylist and whomever just for the rights of your own images when you're handing them? Yeah. I mean just someone I find it's important that I'm always keeping my team updated that I'm not annoying anyone because you know they do a lot for me and I have to it's a mutual benefit thing so if I license and image to accompany it was important that it's a credit or make them aware with model releases it is important if you're using an unsigned model um if you intend to use that further down the line for something but it's also sometimes difficult to obtain and if you do get one and you sell the image always very mind that you should always give back a swell so even though this sign that moderately say hey that image soldier what book cover he is three hundred dollars he's foreign dollars thank you for your time kind of thing so how do you protect your work from submission to like magazines protect when you submit it to a magazine they can only use it for the magazine they're not gonna go using it to promote what they do there's usually no contracts when you work with that kind of thing like online magazines smaller magazines sometimes if you work him with like more of a higher and magazine is more of an exclusivity issue that you can't really share behind the scenes and that kind of thing and that they don't want you should really talk about what's going on where smaller magazines it's just like I think that you submit it and that's all. They're gonna be using it for. They shouldn't be using it for anything else.