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Going “pro” isn’t easy with photography. But when you do it, it can be killer for your income and reputation. Here are some fine tips.

Specialize

As mentioned earlier, once you determine what you like to shoot the most and what you’re best at, this will determine the market(s) that you target to sell your work. One advantage that you have over an established, full-time pro is that you don’t have to shoot things that don’t interest you. By specializing, you’ll probably develop your craft more than a photographer who generalizes, and you’ll enjoy doing it.

In the process, it’s important to develop your own personal style. While you’re learning, or doing photography for your own enjoyment, it’s fine to imitate someone whose work you admire. However, when you want to sell your photography, it’s time to strike out on your own. Besides, if a photo buyer prefers your mentor’s style, they’ll probably call that photographer – not you.

Research

Find out all you can about your potential client before sending unsolicited photos. Remember the adage, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” It’s a good idea to query the publication or company first with a letter, outlining several ideas for photos or photo/text packages. When the potential client wants to see your work, submit only your best – no weak or inappropriate images. Whenever possible, familiarize yourself with the client’s needs. Spend time researching the company or publication, know what types of photos they prefer, and what they’ve used in the past.

Learn to Write

With many publications, such as community newspapers and magazines (like this one), it’s easier to sell photo/text packages than individual photos. So, in addition to your photographic education, you might consider taking a journalism class or two. If you’re not a seasoned writer but you’ve got a great idea, the editors at the publication can polish your work into a usable article. If writing is just not your thing, consider teaming up with a writer and splitting the profits.

Decor

Your photography can decorate the walls of homes and offices, and it is a great way to display your images for other potential buyers to see. Interior decorators are a very good source for this type of work as they can recommend you to a number of their clients. Begin by finding out if there’s a local American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) in your area, contact them and ask for a membership list. (You can also check the local Yellow Pages under Interior Design), then approach these decorators.

You can also go to offices, restaurants, hotels and banks and speak with their management or director of public relations about displaying your photos on their walls. Keep an eye out for places that are redecorating. You might be able to work out an arrangement where you can include your name and phone number with your photography, so that people can contact you about buying your work if they like it.

Galleries

In recent years, photography has experienced a growth in popularity as a collectible art form. If you do fine art photography, besides displaying your wares on the walls of local restaurants or businesses, you might want to approach gallery owners. There are some photography galleries, but many are primarily art galleries that have special photography shows throughout the year, or spotlight photographers from time to time.

In this type of market, it’s especially important to establish your own individual photographic style. To capture the attention of a gallery director, you must have work that makes a statement. Gallery owners have a definite idea what will sell to their clientele. Before you approach a retail gallery, be sure you have an understanding of its client’s needs.

Nonprofit galleries can offer less-experienced photographers a lot of opportunity, especially if they are sponsored by an educational facility or by a cooperative. Profits from sales in these galleries are generally lower than with retail galleries, since their primary goal is to expose the public to a variety of art forms and new artists, or photographers.

Photojournalism

If you’re always abreast of local and national current events, you can shoot pictures to submit to your local newspaper, or even provide photos for the national media when a local story grabs their attention. If photojournalism is your primary focus, major newspapers and news services, such as Associated Press, often need good stringers around the country.

To begin, you can photograph events of local interest and send them to your community newspaper. For example, if you belong to a service club, you can photograph an event such as the installation of new officers. You can also cover rallies, visits by politicians and many other community events. Although the pay at local weekly papers is often minimal – or even nonexistent – you can at least get your pictures published with a photo credit. It’s a great way to familiarize editors and the community with your work.

Sports

Photos of local school or community sports teams can also be sold to local newspapers, or to the teams themselves and their families. Many teams often want group portraits or their awards dinners photographed. There are even a few companies that make trading cards, buttons and other products that you can sell to sports teams. If you love sports and action photography – and don’t mind working on weekends – you might be able to turn this into a great sideline business.

Portraits

Opportunities abound for portrait photographers in every city across the country. With families, there are formal and informal portraits, passports, new baby photos and wedding photography. Schools have yearbooks and class portraits. Local businesses often need executive portraits for their in-house publications and annual reports.

If portraiture is your chosen field of expertise, you must have access to a studio (many photographers utilize part of their home for this purpose). There are also times when you’ll be called upon to photograph events in the field, especially weddings. As a beginning portrait photographer, let people know about your services by putting ads in local papers or contact schools to bid for class portraits. Happy customers will be your best source of advertising.

Paper Products

You can start locally in this market by photographing restaurants, hotels, churches, schools, and a wide variety of businesses. With some computer software programs, you can even produce your own postcards and greeting cards and then sell them in large quantities back to these businesses. They, in turn, can sell them to their customers.

When you’re ready to start approaching greeting card, calendar and poster companies, just remember that there are more than 1000 greeting card companies in the United States alone, and they produce billions of paper products. A great many of them work with free-lancers. Again, it’s important to look at retail greeting cards, calendars, note cards, etc., to see what’s selling.

After your research, query companies you’re interested in working with and send them a stock photo list. These organizations usually receive thousands of submissions regularly and they often prefer to know what you have before you send it. This can also lead to future sales even if your particular stock inventory doesn’t meet their immediate needs.

Magazines

Although it’s a highly competitive market, there are tens of thousands of magazines published every month. These include trade, special-interest, business, association, regional and general-interest consumer magazines. Chances are that some are looking for the type of photography that you do. Again, go to newsstands and libraries to research the various types of publications that are out there. When you find several publications that may be able to use your special talents, call or write to them and request submission guidelines and an editorial calendar. These guidelines will inform you of the magazine’s policies, their photographic needs, and their pay rates.

When you contact these people again, be prepared to let them know what your specialties are (since you’ve done your research, you know that your work is appropriate for them), and suggest five to six photographic ideas or photo/text packages. Your chances of acceptance are far greater when you offer options, instead of just one idea.

As you develop working relationships with one or more publications, you will probably start getting assignments from them, and you may be able to negotiate higher rates.

Stock Photo Agencies

Stock houses like Getty Images are great places to market your existing photos, especially if you have a lot of high-quality images and are continually productive. These agencies market the use of these photos in return for a percentage of the rate received, usually around 50%.

What’s amazing is that there are a lot of niche opportunities for specific products. As an example, I recently searched the web for stop snoring mouthpieces and found this site. Now, it’s pretty clear that this site is in desperate need of some “snoring product” photography. I contacted the site owner, who certainly knows his “stop snoring advice”, and pitched him on taking some shots of the products he recommends. He said yes. I ended up getting a couple of thousands of dollars worth of business out of him simply because the companies that provide things like pillows, mouthpieces and other snoring devices simply don’t hire a photographer!

Stock agencies are ideal for those who would rather not market their own work, and can negotiate higher prices than you might ask for. However, the world of stock photography is a highly competitive one, and you must consistently produce saleable images – and lots of them – in order to succeed. Photo needs vary from agency to agency, but a common request of stock houses is images of people in professional and leisure-time activities. Model and property releases are a must.

Do research to find stock houses that market the type of work you like to shoot, and approach them with a list of your stock subjects and your portfolio. For lists of legitimate stock agencies, contact ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers), 609/799-8300; or PACA (Picture Agency Council of America), 800/457-7222.

Don’t Give Up!

It’s easy to give up after a few rejections (and we’ve all experienced them). Learn to consider each rejection letter a lesson learned, and continue to submit and tailor your submissions to the needs of the client. Whenever possible, try to get feedback from the client or photo editor.

There are always going to be moments in a shooter’s life where he or she just feels glum. Non-creative, even. Here are some tips to get the blood flowing!

1 Take a hike!

Summer means hot, but it’s the perfect season for an early-morning or late-afternoon hike. The temperature is most pleasant then, and by fortuitous coincidence, these are also the best times for most outdoor photography: The low-angle sunlight produces long shadows that add interest to scenic shots, and the warm illumination enhances people and wildlife portraits. It’s beautiful early and late in the day, and a wonderful time to explore the world around you with your camera, whether that world is your local neighborhood or a national park. Look for exciting lighting, grand vistas and small details, and try different lens focal lengths.

2 Make an outdoor portrait!

Direct noon sunlight is terrible for people pictures, because its harshness makes subjects squint, and its high angle causes eyes to disappear into black pockets of shadow. But when the sun is low in the sky, your subject can face it without squinting, giving you a beautiful directional light source. Summer provides a longer “window” of early and late light for your shooting pleasure (we’d suggest late afternoon for most subjects, as few of us look our photogenic best first thing in the morning, and the build-up of industrial haze during the day makes afternoon light more red-orange compared to the more yellow light of early morning – important if you’re shooting in color). You can face your subject directly toward the sun for front lighting, or at an angle for more facial modeling (use a white, silver or gold photo reflector or large sheet of white poster board to bounce light into the shadow areas). If you want softer light, try open shade. Or turn your subject away from the sun and use a large reflector to “bounce” light back onto the subject’s face.

3 Get wet!

Summer is the season of water fun, and provides many opportunities to get great photos of these activities. But instead of just shooting as a passive spectator, look for new angles and, when possible, try to get into the action. Here, photographers found a bridge overlooking a kayaker, went for a swim to get a close-up view of a rowboat, and captured a water skier from the back of the tow boat. Be sure to protect your camera from the elements (use a waterproof or weatherproof camera, or an underwater housing – relatively inexpensive ones like those from Ewa Marine provide great protection). Use fast shutter speeds to “freeze” action, or slow speeds to blur it. Try panning the camera to track a moving subject at a slow shutter speed, to really emphasize the subject’s speed against a blurred background.

4 Face the music!

Summer is a wonderful time for outdoor concerts, and with a decent eat and a zoom lens, you can get some nice shots from your seat. Four things to keep in mind: First, some concerts don’t permit photography – don’t try to sneak a camera in to these. Second, concerts that do permit photography generally don’t permit the use of flash. The solution? Fast film – Fujicolor Super G Plus 800 allowed the photographer to catch Carlene Carter in concert (below) with a handheld 35mm SLR and 80-200mm f/2.8 zoom lens. Third, because of the dramatic lighting at concerts, it’s best to use a spot meter (or, as done here, the SLR’s built-in spot-metering capability) to read the main subject, so the reading isn’t adversely influenced by darker or brighter areas of the scene. Fourth, remember to enjoy the music!

5 Bag a beastie!

Professional wildlife photographers spend weeks, months, even lifetimes in the field to get their amazing animal shots. But you can get some very nice ones at your local zoo, seashore or park. You’re not trying to fool anyone into thinking you spent weeks on safari – you just want some great animal shots. Tips: Take a telephoto zoom lens, go early in the day (when the crowds are sparse), check your backgrounds for distracting elements, and look for good lighting. And don’t forget about human “beasties” – they can be the most fascinating subjects of all!

6 Get a (night) life!

Warm summer nights make for comfortable shooting and provide lots to shoot. Great night subjects include city skylines, busy boulevards, neon signs, night lights reflected in glass and water, and night life in general. Use fast film and you can capture the many moods of the night by existing light. Use a tripod and you can make long exposures to blur moving traffic while stationary elements of the scene remain sharp.

When it’s raining, don’t forget to protect your camera! Unless you have someone who can hold an umbrella over you, keep your compact camera inside your raincoat or use a locking plastic bag as a temporary waterproof housing. You can create your own housing by putting your camera in a plastic bag, with a hole cut out for the lens. Be sure to secure the bag to the front rim of your lens with a rubber band. Take care that the bag doesn’t block your viewfinder or any auto-focusing windows on the front of your camera. It’s also a good time to try a single-use waterproof camera. There are also several splash-proof compact cameras on the market. Some even feature a built-in zoom lens for added versatility.

Gray skies don’t usually add much to a picture, so it’s best to minimize the sky or find scenes where you can crop the sky out. A gray sky can fool your cameras meter and will render the rest of your picture too dark. If the foreground in your photo is exposed properly, the sky might appear chalky and white in contrast.

In a heavy downpour the rain itself can be your subject. Most point-and-shoot cameras will automatically use shutter speeds fast enough to freeze the motion of raindrops. If your camera allows you to override the shutter speed, try slowing it down to 1/30 or slower. The rain will then become long diagonal streaks cutting through the frame of your picture. If you are taking a picture of raindrops, try using a dark background to make the rain stand out.

You might also want to take pictures of people with colorful umbrellas that provide a bright contrast to a dull day. Then try zeroing in on the umbrellas themselves for a close-up abstract design. Puddles and the wet pavement will have reflections that may provide interesting photo opportunities as well.

A storm can produce some other great photographic byproducts in addition to the rain. Lightning, for example, is a wonderful thing to capture on film. It can also be quite dangerous, so take pictures only from a distance and preferably from inside a building or a car. You can photograph lightning day or night, although night shots will be the most dramatic. If your point-and-shoot camera allows you to override the shutter speed, set your camera for a speed of several seconds. Steady it with a tripod or on a windowsill and aim it in the direction of the lightning. Open your shutter, keeping a lens cap or a piece of black cardboard over the lens until you see a flash of lightning. Uncover the lens to record the lightning and then cover it, and wait for the next flash. If several bolts of lightning appear during the time your shutter is open, you may be capture some dramatic photos indeed.

If you’re lucky, you might be able to capture a rainbow after the storm. You may not be able to predict where it will occur, but you can increase your chance of seeing one by facing away from the sun after a storm. After you capture your rain photos, try scouting around for potential compositions for rainbows (most of the time, though, rainbows take you by surprise and you just have to make do with the foreground that’s in front of you). A rainbow in an empty sky is still pretty, but if you can include an interesting foreground, you’ll get a sense of scale and place in your picture.

In terms of film choices, ISO 100 is fine in many daylight rainy situations. But if the light is dim, or you’re shooting at night, try a faster film such as 400 to 1000.

Armed with this knowledge – and your raincoat and waterproof camera – you don’t ever have to let a prediction of rain stop your photography again.

One of my favorite techniques for capturing a person on film in a studio is to use only a single light source. This simplified approach suits me well. It is quick to set up, less intimidating to inexperienced models, and easy to accomplish in any indoor situation, at home or abroad. In addition, for those on a limited budget, it is easy to afford.

Keep the photo simple, so you can get crazy with Photoshop later!

More importantly, though, with a single light I can create dramatic illumination that seems to reveal a person’s character more so than with other types of lighting.

Tungsten vs. Strobe

Any kind of single strobe or photoflood can be used for this technique. Both types of lights can be controlled to achieve the desired effect. They can be diffused, focused to a narrow beam, and easily repositioned. The decision you have to make has to do with three factors; cost, light output, and heat.

Any flash, no matter how inexpensive, will cost more than a reflector and a light bulb. The latter can be purchased at a hardware store for under $10. Flash units range from less than $100 to a lot more if you purchase a studio power pack.

The second factor is light output. A 500-watt bulb in a reflector puts out a lot of light, but it is very harsh on your subject’s eyes. Squinting does not contribute to a natural-looking portrait. A 100-watt bulb is significantly less bright, of course, but the depth of field available to you is much more limited. In order to use small lens apertures, you need enough light for a correct exposure.

While you can get good results from a small, affordable flash, the amount of light available is several f-stops less than that provided by more expensive Speedotron or Balcar studio units. In addition, the more advanced units feature built-in modeling lights which provide a visual preview of the results. Just as with the 100-watt light bulb, the depth of field choices you have are reduced. To use f/11 or f/16, a faster film must be used, or the flash must be placed very close to the subject.

The Background

Most portrait photographers insist on lighting a person such that he or she appears separated from the background. In an outdoor portrait during daylight hours, this is easy to do simply by using the ambient light. In a studio, a bright background in back of dark hair (or light hair against a dark background) creates the contrast necessary for separation. If a dark background is used with a dark-haired subject, a hair light is employed to create the separation.

The portrait that accompanies this article shows no separation at all between the young girl and the black background. I purposely juxtaposed a model with black hair in front of a black backdrop to meld the two together. Notice what happens to the face. There’s virtually nothing else to look at. Everything in the composition is dark except the only thing that really matters.

By using one light and directing the illumination on the face only, I literally force a viewer’s attention on my subject’s face. With portraits of glamour models, business executives, groups of people, and a bride and groom, this technique isn’t appropriate. But for dramatic individual portrayals, it is simple to do and very effective.

Film choices

If the one light used does not provide a significant level of illumination, you will be forced to use a fast film starting in the ISO 400 range. Medium telephoto lenses are used for most portraits, and this means that to keep the entire face in focus – from the tip of the nose to the ears – a lens aperture of f/8 or smaller is required in most cases (depending upon how close the camera position is to the subject). Small apertures in turn require more light.

If the single light source isn’t bright enough, fast films (or slower films that you push one or two stops) are the only options. Kodak’s T-Max 400 is a good choice, as is Fuji’s Neopan 400 or 1600 or Ilford’s Delta 400. These films are relatively fine grained despite their speed.

On the other hand, a more powerful light source will give you more choices. You can choose a sharp, ultra fine-grained film, or a faster, grainy film can also be used for a more coarse look. Agfapan 25 is an excellent fine-grained film that produces tack sharp negatives. When I use a grainy film like Kodak Tri-X (I usually rate it at EI 320) with a powerful light source, it’s often necessary to cut the power of the output because even with my smallest lens aperture the light may be too bright. This can be done with neutral density gels over the flash, or a polarizing filter can be placed over the camera lens for roughly a two f-stop reduction in exposure.

The Expression

One-light portraits are very stylized. They are compelling and poignant, and I think they are more effective with certain kinds of expressions and body language. Quiet, introspective, and pensive moments are conducive to being portrayed with a single light source. I ask my subjects to sit erect (a slouched posture is never attractive) and look down or off to one side significantly away from the lens axis. (Shooting a person looking slightly to one side of the lens drives me crazy. I think it’s ridiculous.)

Usually, I ask them to close their lips. I might ask for a hint of a smile (with no teeth showing), or a more somber or thoughtful expression.

On occasions when I ask my subjects to look into the lens, I am looking for different qualities depending on the subject. In children, I want to elicit their innocence. Large, luminous eyes in a young face should be level with the camera (too many adults point the cameras down at children). In a young woman, I might ask her to lower her face somewhat with her eyes looking intently into the lens. This makes her eyes appear a bit larger and more sensual.

In a man, strength and assuredness are traits I try to capture. To that end, I might place my single light more to the side and ask for a serious and/or intense expression.

Shadows

A single light source creates contrasty shadows, so be sure to pay special attention to the shadows on the face and upper body of your subjects. Move the light to a different position until you like what you see. Side lighting offers the most dramatic contrast, where one side of the face is dark. Rembrandt or 45 [degrees] lighting creates classic shadows on the face, while front lighting places shadows on either side of the face and under the nose (if the light is raised high enough) to form the famous “butterfly” shadow.

MASK BASICS: CHANNELS AND LAYERS

The solution to bad photos often involves creating “masks” to separate different portions of the image for special handling. Most importantly, we need the masks available in their own image “channels” or “layers” so we can manipulate them separately, and possibly combine or apply several different masks at once. Both Photoshop CS5 and PhotoPaint provide this capability.

The type of mask we’re discussing is rather different from the simple all-or-nothing selection tools available in basic image editors: Here, a mask is a separate plane or layer of the image, containing digital values ranging from 0 to 255. The mask values determine how much of the original image will show through when it is pasted onto a different background, or to what extent various effects will be applied. Generally, a value of 255 in a mask channel means the underlying source image will be copied or affected 100%, while a mask value of 0 means the underlying image will be left behind or ignored. Intermediate values vary the percentage of an effect or the transparency of the image when it is copied. A mask can be created automatically or semi-automatically by the program, and then touched up by hand, or can even be created from scratch by painting on the mask layer itself.

Various programs handle channels and/or layers differently, and a full treatment is far beyond the scope of this article. However, these tools are extremely powerful, so I encourage you to study your software’s documentation.

CREATING A MASK

If your software supports masks at all, it will probably allow you to view the mask and your image at the same time, with the mask appearing as a semi-transparent overlay. Working in this mode, it’s often a fairly simple matter to trace the outlines of your object with a paintbrush tool, and then just fill in the interior to complete the mask.

As mentioned earlier, however, our sample image doesn’t lend itself well to such simple handling, due to several places where the background sky peeks through the foreground subject. Fortunately there are some automated tools that can greatly ease this task.

Both Photoshop and PhotoPaint have powerful color-selection tools for defining ranges of colors you want to include or exclude from the masked region. While both applications let you select specific colors to include in the masked area, PhotoPaint goes one better by allowing individual control over the range of hue, color saturation, and brightness included for each specific color you select. (This feature can be very handy, allowing you to say, for instance, “Include all the bluish-colored pixels, regardless of how saturated the color is, but only those brighter than a certain value.”) For its part, Photoshop provides greater flexibility in manipulating separate “layers” of images and masks independently.

INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH MASKING

Masking is such an exacting discipline that third-party vendors have stepped up to the table, offering tools that go beyond even the most sophisticated utilities included in the applications themselves. One such tool is MaskPro from Extensis, available as a plug-in for Photoshop. MaskPro lets you define multiple sets of colors to include/exclude in the masked area, and then paint with a “magic brush,” building up the mask in the brushed area based on the currently active include/exclude color set.

The advantage of this technique is that you can use different sets of include/exclude colors for various portions of the image: Lighting changes across an image often mean that an “include” color in one area is actually an “exclude” color in another. At nearly $300, MaskPro and similar tools aren’t cheap, but if you need to do a lot of critical masking, the price is easy to adjust.

WATCH THE EDGES!

A common problem in digital collage work occurs when an object photographed over a light background is composited into a darker scene, or vice versa. In these situations, it can be very difficult to avoid light or dark fringes around the pasted-in object. The easy fix is to simply cut your mask a bit tighter, to trim the edges. But this may not always be feasible, as the off-color fringes may include important subject detail. Such is the case in our sample image, where background light filtered through the edges of the foliage. Eliminating the backlit foliage would leave unacceptable gaps in the subject, but including it would lead to even greater problems when pasting into a dark or differently colored background.

There are several ways to deal with this, depending on the subject and background involved. Time and space prevent a full discussion, but the key technique is to create a special mask layer, selecting only the problem “fringe” areas. Once these have been separated from the rest of the image through the mask, they can be adjusted independently, to match the tone and/or color of the new background.

CAN’T MAKE IT? FAKE IT!

Often, the key to life lies in knowing when to put down the screwdriver and grab a hammer, and image editing is no different. You could spend all day working with complicated masks – especially with complex subjects like foliage or a model’s hair – when a few minutes of cloning would achieve the same result. Faced with such complexity, often the best approach is to create an approximate mask, then “paint” in the missing detail with a cloning tool. Given reasonable source material, cloning-in fine details is frequently much faster than initially trying to preserve them through fussy mask work.

SUMMARY

Using masks to separate objects in an image is a powerful compositing technique. The latest releases of major software packages and third-party add-ons provide automated tools that greatly reduce the labor involved. In the next column, we’ll use what we know about masking to “improve” shots with stock photography.