How I Got Featured in a Best Selling Photography Magazine

I cut my photographic teeth long before the World Wide Web was even a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye. It was an era when you learnt your craft from books and magazines. A time when every shot cost you money. Because of that, you would devour the information in every magazine to make sure every shot counted. 

Rose tinted spectacles are all very well, but some of those magazines I read in my early days were pretty shoddy by today’s standards. Predominantly black and white, full of obscure adverts and often containing ridiculously technical articles that no enthusiast photographer really cared about.

And then came Digital Photographer magazine. I am not sure when it first appeared but I remember the impact it had on me. Full glossy color pages, heavily illustrated practical articles and modern attractive design. I was hooked from issue one so imagine my delight when in Autumn 2017 I was approached by one of their staff writers, Peter Fenech, to write a very small piece as part of a larger article.

But how did I get that invite?

Fuji Featured Photographer

Being a photographer these days is as much about being a skilled marketer as taking an image. A skilled marketer I am not, but fortunately, I am articulate enough to be able to bang out the occasionally interesting photographic article. 

If you are not great at banging on doors to get noticed, writing and publishing online is a very good alternative. I have been fortunate enough to be able to write many articles here at Light Stalking. As you will also know Light Stalking is consistently one of the best read photographic sites on the Internet.

For me, that meant I was coming to the attention of many more people than I would if I were simply knocking on doors.

In 2017, Fuji seemed to notice that I was somewhat of an evangelist for their products, and invited me to become their featured photographer of the week. Of course, this is not a career-changing move, but it was certainly an honor and further increased my exposure to the greater photographic world.

Digital Photographer Magazine

Whether it was my articles on Light Stalking, being a Fuji featured photographer or something else, I received an email from Peter Fenech at Digital Photographer magazine write two very small pieces to fit into a larger article on maximizing image quality. My contributions were about Shooting to the Right and Understanding your Histogram. Both were accompanied by decent sized images. The article went out in Digital Photographer issue 194 and I was very pleased with my small but hopefully helpful contribution. 

The following month I was pleasantly surprised to receive another email from Peter asking me if I would write a larger article as part of a feature on how to build and maintain an image library. Naturally, I agreed.

The article was to be about how I look after my own image catalogue and select stock for agencies plus my tips on running your own catalogue. I was also to get a feature “pro case study” 

Peter, sent me a series of questions to answer for the pro case study such as “What are the first steps when setting up an image database?” The most difficult aspect was limiting the answers to the required 40-50 words. When I write for Light Stalking, my articles tend to be in the 700-1000 word range so trying to condense what I wanted to say into a very small volume of words was quite tricky.

The final article was published in Digital Photographer issue 196 in early 2018. As well as my written words, they featured nine of my stock images including one on a double page spread. 

As a travel stock photographer, I am lucky enough to have my images published in magazines around the world. However, as they are sold through stock libraries, I rarely get to see those images. Libraries are notoriously fickle about divulging information on who they sold your image to. For that reason, it was a welcome and pleasant surprise to be able to see my images and words in print, published in a dedicated and popular photographic magazine.

It was also an experience I thoroughly enjoyed.