One of the biggest worries for many full-time freelancers is making enough money on any given story to make writing it at least more lucrative than flipping burgers. For travel writers, this can be exceptionally true, but there is also a fairly fast way to add to your bottom line. Take your camera along with you when researching a story — for some of us, this might also be known as sight-seeing.

Selling Photography

Many magazines and other travel markets buy articles and photographs separately. In a way, this process is a hold over from a time when the high quality photography gear necessary to take print quality images was extremely expensive. But these days, even consumer-quality cameras can provide pretty good pictures. It’s become much more a question of skill than gear.

But it’s a pretty big hassle for editors to find photographs to go with your story. If you can offer up great images, you can win the editor’s heart — along with some extra money in your check. Not all markets pay for photographs, unfortunately, but offering photographs when you query can still give you an edge against the competition.

Getting Set Up

At a bare minimum, you’ll need a camera capable of taking 300 dpi images if you plan on selling your photographs. That’s the lower boundary of what’s considered printable. (If you’re planning on selling them to an online publication, they only need to be 72 dpi). Many basic point-and-shoot cameras actually come close these days, although an SLR camera generally offers more functionality. I don’t want to suggest that you rush out and buy a new camera, of course, but if you find yourself doing more photography, you may want to move towards something a bit fancier. Personally, I have a Canon Rebel XTi with a couple of years on it — something comparable on the market today would be the Canon Digital Rebel XSi. Before you purchase any new equipment, though, see what you can do with what you have.

If you haven’t done a lot of photography, it’s crucial to build up your skills. While you may have taken plenty of snapshots, taking photos to accompany a story can be something else entirely. I can’t exactly offer a full photography how-to in this article, but the best photography resource I’ve ever found is Digital Photography School. Read the articles, try out the tricks and start improving your photography. I’ve learned tricks from DPS that were never even mentioned in my college photography classes.

Offering Your Work

When I have photos to accompany a story, I generally mention the fact in my query. Often, that’s all it takes for an editor to respond with that market’s standard rate for a photograph. However, if you wind up with great photos that don’t really fit with an article, it’s worth exploring other options: many magazines purchase stand-alone photographs as do a variety of stock photography sites. Depending on how much time you want to spend on your photography, it can be as important a part of your income as your travel writing.

Photo — Jwinfred