Saturday, 22 February 2014

Pen & Camera


   Editors love writers who can handle a camera. Big-budget magazines hire photographers but industry publications, aka B2B magazines, can rarely afford that luxury. If you want an edge on the freelance pack, learn to handle a camera just as well as your pen. It will make a critical and moneymaking difference.

I steadied my Nikon, elbows on a workbench. Auto exposure gave the shot a good sense of motion at 1/8 sec. I cropped tightly.

   Study a photography book. Take a course. Put published photos alongside your current efforts. Can you do better? Study composition. Corner a pro. Think “publication-quality.” Buy a real camera. Shoot, think and shoot again. If you can take credible photos to submit with your stories, you are worth more to your editor than a same-quality writer who cannot. This is a fact.

Copyright © Carroll McCormick 2014

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