NatGeo Photo Tips

January 20, 2008 11:09 PM

Like to faire une photo? You're not alone. The inimitable (but perhaps for not much longer) National Geographic magazine has advice for taking portraits, travel photography, landscapes, excitingly vague 'adventure' photos and even plan old digital photography. After you've created magic how about selling it or getting published? Sharing is so 2007.
posted by oxford blue (13 comments total)

I love these photos (got another National Geographic photo book for Christmas), but a few of these "tip" pages seem to be fairly light on actual tips.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 11:41 PM on January 20, 2008

Not for long? I am so sad.
posted by cytherea at 12:00 AM on January 21, 2008

Too bad that "selling it" link points to istockphoto. It's a travesty that photography sells for that low. Better to look to something like the Photoshelter Collection (disclaimer: I'm a member) or Alamy where photographers stand to get a fair cut of a fair price.
posted by msbrauer at 2:54 AM on January 21, 2008

Some photographers are doing quite well on istockphoto. It is heavily used by editorial outlets looking for article inserts who can't afford a couple hundred bucks for a "real" stock image but think that a half dozen $5-$10 no-negotiation images are a bargain. There are also tens of thousands of local businesses that think similarly, leading to the annoying [to me] phenomenon of seeing the same image over and over again in different flyers and brochures.

That Alamy and Corbis are still in business while iStockPhoto flourishes simply means there were untapped markets between "i can shoot that myself" and "$1000 for a fantastic pic."

Anyway: embrace the now. Go out and shoot.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:49 AM on January 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not for long? What'd I miss?
posted by Zinger at 5:31 AM on January 21, 2008

What did you miss? The future! A world everyone is as good as anyone, where amateurs rule, a world in which means no one has to get paid much of anything given that "pros" are just throwbacks let in via deluded gatekeepers or whatever. The only people who still make much money in this scenario are business executives, who get creative work on the cheap.
posted by raysmj at 7:03 AM on January 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Some photographers are doing quite well on istockphoto.

According to PDN's survey of professionals, photographers who sell through istock are actually doing much, much worse than those who sell their images through agencies who aren't trying to scam them.
posted by bradbane at 7:30 AM on January 21, 2008

... a few of these "tip" pages seem to be fairly light on actual tips.

These are galleries to go along with tip-laden articles. The main index of tip articles is here. Within each article there is a link (on the right under "related topics") to the related gallery and to a condensed list of "quick tips." There is actually quite a lot of info in the articles.
posted by whatnotever at 9:21 AM on January 21, 2008

Am I missing something? Whatnotever just linked to oxford blue's first link, which is this very post.

Is my browser screwing something up or what?
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 12:37 PM on January 21, 2008

Is there some specific threat to National Geographic magazine that causes you to hint at its demise?
posted by bz at 2:42 PM on January 21, 2008

Erm, yeah, I'm not sure how that happened. Either I screwed up or Metafilter ate my URL. Probably my fault.

The photo tips main index is here.
posted by whatnotever at 3:10 PM on January 21, 2008

In iStock's defense they don't require up sizing up the photo like Alamy does.
posted by oxford blue at 6:09 PM on January 21, 2008

Ooh, thanks whatnotever.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 11:03 PM on January 21, 2008