Making a Living : Editorial Photography

Careers in the Photographic Industry
Editorial Photography

I would probably say that I am into Editorial Photography a lot more than Advertising but I do think that I can work quite well with my style of work for both categories.
Editorial Photography can be quite harsh when it comes to the money side of things, Trying to get your own images sold can be really hard, especially for a price that will actually make a profit.  A company could offer a certain deal for less money and It would seem like the right idea to work for them, but they then could use the imagery and not give you what you should be getting from your own photographs.

Editorial Fashion Photography, if I had the time to 100% concentrate on some technically great imagery, and if I could get in links with people I know creating their own fashion brands or clothing designs, I would be more than happy to follow a editorial fashion photography route.  I would be shooting and shooting for a long while before I make it with any kind of substantial job in the field but would definitely make me build up my portfolio with a Fashion style as well as my own current style and this would give me more opportunities in fields such as beauty and fashion photography.

 Editorial Photography like I said, is a hard business for the money income.  As a career in this genre, it would take a long time and probably a lot of savings to even get started.  A busy Editorial Photographer works at an average of 150 days of the year and once you think about all the things in life that you need to live on, on a day to day basis, is around £400 a day mark.  And no magazines will pay this at all. Some jobs, if landed in one could actually lead to more jobs in the same genre.

Stock Photography
A lot of photographers find stock photography and easier way to get jobs, and money. More and more people are selling Royalty Free images rather than the traditional method of Right Managed images, due to this clients like 'Getty' pay hardly any money and Stock photography has gone down and down for the photographer.  If work is original and unique then some clients will pay a good enough fee for the Royalty free images but producing something that is unique and different to some people seems like a huge challenge on its own.

Editorial Photography
The different market areas can vary a lot, Papparazzi can have very high fees an the line of work whereas some newspapers only pay as low as £18 per image, which is certainly not good enough.  National Newspapers can get £150 a day, so this would be the one to aim for.  For someone like me, Editorial photography seems a bit too much for my liking to start off in the real world.

Photographers that just give away CD's of their work away without even realising are the photographers who are making editorial photography harder in todays world.  The images get passed around between the entire field and the photographer then has no control over what happens and cannot do anything about it, so the most important thing from this is to always focus of selling work correctly and for what you think is right, and if it is there will be offers there.