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Shooting to Get Published

Now we're gonna talk about approaching a magazine a little bit further. So because I've been branding myself with a certain style and being all about color, I ended up getting approached by destination. I do magazine for the whole shoot in Costa Rica. About it was called mad for malachite. They were doing literally an entire shoot based on the color green of malachite. They had people sourcing. They had vendors from all over. Everything was like green related, which was like Who? My God, this was meant for me because Green's my favorite color, but they flew me down to Costa Rica. We stayed at the Four Seasons. We did this whole amazing shoot based around the color green. And the reason they thought about me and hired me was because they now associate color with me. So my style had stood out to them so much that they asked me to come over just to shoot green. I'm not the only photographer that can shoot the color green, but somehow because of the way I branded myself, they were like we ...

knew we must have you. So that was really exciting to come down, obviously, like everything is green and history. Guys like put a visa and like there's jungle everywhere And it was such an amazing shoot, and I got almost full creative freedom here. We did a lot of set up shots and table scapes, and I'm very like green inspired, but they let me have a lot of creative freedom and picking locations and coming up with ideas. And so I spent a whole day just scouting around Enquist Rica in the area, which was super fun and just coming up with ways to really showcase the color green for the shoot needed. Everything like the florals is all greenery instead of flowers. And and for me, the reason why this should happen I'm gonna talk about it was because I got on their radar so sometimes, like I pitch all the time and it's just like being an actor. I've never been a doctor, so I can't really say too much about this. But I'm sure that most actors have dealt with a lot of rejection before. They got a yes right, and it's that way with with magazines and publications. It's not like every time I submit something everyone says yes and we want to pay for you to come here. It it happens more often now than not because I now have, you know, work to back me that have done that. But in the beginning, I got turned down a lot. And so but getting on their radar is the most important. Like the fact that I was pitching to people, they'd be like your Your work is really nice. Love this story. It doesn't better magazine. But now that editor knows you are they know about you. They've had a dialogue with you. They've seen your work. And so I would submit these, like super colorful jobs to them. And now I'm getting regularly published, like now definitely Shiny magazine literally serves my blawg, and they will contact me and say, we love this. Can we publish it? We love like that. They now come to me. But that took years of me pitching to them. And this is with a few different publications. So they now know me as a super vibrant destination photographer full of color. They've asked me to do. And then I told him why also, right? So I started submitting stories of them. Now they want to potentially pick up my James Bond story, but they again it was already posted and huffingtonpost. So they're like, Well, we love the idea. We love the visual, But can you rewrite the story and just talk about Mr and Mrs Mr Mrs Smith are, you know, like and just kind of rework it and make it really cool instead of necessarily calling it James Bond. And then we could rework this story. So I'm going to be now re working that story for them but being able to submit an idea. And now, now they're coming to me and, like, can we rework this and use it? And it's kind of awesome. But eso now what? I've also done with a lot to get on the radar of different magazines, and these are some tips. I will email or call and say, Here's my upcoming schedule and or wish list of places I'd like to go. I will be traveling here, here, here and here. Are there any photos or story ideas or hotels or anything you'd like fruit that you, your magazine would like to have featured that align with any of these places and usually nine times out of 10. They're like, Yes, we love photos from this one. Hotel todo showcase them as, Ah, honeymoon destination. Or we really like this idea. Like maybe you could shoot some stuff about this for our next coming article and bill. Sometimes they'll just pick through and pick detail shots like they'll do a story that's like the top 10 best beaches. And they'll like source one of my beach photos from a shoot randomly and not on the radar. And I'm constantly saying, Here's where I'm going. They'll come to me and ask if they can pick and choose images. So it's really cool to just there's no problem to reach out and say, I'm doing this. I'm going to be here. This is interest you. One of the coolest things was destination Weddings and Honeymoons magazine, their competitors. I work with them a lot, too. And one time I was at a conference and I was talking to the editor and I said I overheard really in line for the women's bathroom, actually, and I overheard her talking about a been dying to go to Les Combes. Oh, and like I just can't find the time to go there. And I was like, Oh, I'm actually gonna be going there and in a month and you have any tips or suggestions And she was like, Wait a minute, could you Future hotel for us while you're there, you like, really need to get this hotel feature. And I was like, Yeah, I will. She ended up hooking me up at this like luxury hotel. We got like, the rooftop sky sweet. They, like, paid for all of our meals and everything like private boat tours across the league, because they wanted me to just to do some quick photos and write it up for their magazine. And I was just happen to be in line and overheard this woman in the bathroom. But it's one of those things where, like, they're not mind readers like I'm not in the board room with these magazines, knowing like what their ideas are for their next five issues. So reaching out to them and telling them this is a dream destination I'd love to go to or this somewhere I'm going to go to Well, sometimes I like who I didn't even think about that. We'd love to future that definitely send me something or we'll send you there. And so getting on their radar is really important to get some of those jobs creating the jobs you want. So creating the jobs you want is exactly that. It's about creating it, about visualizing it about being the initiator. I've always been the initiator, and I think that's why I've gotten a lot of these jobs and and I got into writing and doing more press and travel. But all these dream jobs going back to my James Bond themes, shooting everything were ideas that I had that I pitched. And they're always looking for pitches like what we forget is that magazines and blog's are always looking for fresh new content. In fact, they are lake fixing your freaking out like what we write about next. You know they need stuff, and we are the content creators. Right There's like three kinds of people out there. There is content creators and content aggregators, people that collect it. And then there's people that do, like steal it right. But they're the content creators air very high and demand. We have a skill that a lot of people don't have, which is photography. And if you can add writing and video to, that's a whole other level. But you want Teoh create the jobs that you want. You have to be able to pitch ideas of them and stories, and sometimes you'll you will align with him perfectly. And sometimes you make them think about something they didn't even think about before. Either way, they need you. They need you guys and they need us. And I used to be like Oh my gosh, were you published me? And now I'm like I bought all this content. I told them to talking about re break every purpose, ing or images. Once I got on their radar, I said, By the way, I have a huge library of travel images that if you ever need it for feature stories or if you need it for any type of article you're doing like just email me and say, Hey, we need some images from ST Lucia. Are we need this? Do you have anything? And I most likely do and they do now. They reach out to me and say, We need to fill in some some stuff here can Do you have anything from these regions? And they A lot of times we talk to me. So sometimes I'll just get little photos published here and there, and it won't be a whole story, but I now have, like, aligned myself with these magazines. And then now that they know that I write him a content creator, they've asked me to guess blogged. They've asked me to do a guest article or sometimes do some sort of like social media takeover situation. The opportunities are endless. But the whole point is that having a story and being the initiator is really important to getting published. Somebody is asking if you have any recommendations for travel magazines, too. Send the first pitch to what magazines? Air travel websites. You recommend to start with submitting your pictures. Do you have I talk about that later? Okay. I'm gonna tell you there's a treasure trove of information. I'm gonna tell you. Stock sites to go, Teoh. I'm gonna tell you literally their sites that you can sign up your email and learn about all these free press trips that you can be a part of. There's information like I can tell you where to self publish to get started to get your articles online so you can then use that as leverage to pitch herself two other publications. I mean, it's like a treasure trove of knowledge, but we're gonna we're gonna dive into Don't want to spoil it yet. Maybe I think I thought another. Um, Quick instagram photo. Kind of going back to the top of the segment, if you don't mind what I said. Instagram photo. I'm an instagram question. How do you So Herbie is asking, How do you time or schedule your instagram posts? Do you have any after that, help you with that? There are acts I actually have an assistant that helps you know that she's my scheduler, but we have She's very like, strategic. And we're gonna get in the strategic cast tagging and stuff more tomorrow. But with Instagram, we Fridays of the least busy Sundays are the most busy. And so we only post a couple times in Friday. I usually post three a day at the same time, and I just have my assistant schedule them. There are raps out there that can do it. I'll get into that too. When we talk about instagram scheduling, but it is really important to be consistent about when you're posting. But we we don't waste an extra post on Friday evening because like that's like the least amount of traffic on Friday evenings. So we just do two on Friday and you Extra and Sunday and also for us West coasters were at a little bit of a disadvantage. It's good to poster early in the morning East Coast time. You can schedule your post to do that because you know all the people that are going to work and, like, hate their jobs and are really surfing the Internet. It's of actually doing their jobs. Their like. Monday morning, however, is a really busy times. It's good the Post or pretend you're on New York time when you're opposed. A. Yeah, there's definitely APS to help with the scheduling. And like I said, I schedule my stuff all out almost a month in advance or by trip. And it helps me to not have to think about it every day. Yeah. Have you found a way to get around the new Instagram? Ah, you know they're changing. Everything isn't in chronological order. and anymore. So have you found a way to get around that? So your stuff floats to the top or where it should be as opposed to getting buried? My assistant is like really doing all of that kind of like basically a lot of your older posts or just lost and not searchable anymore. Um, it's all about strategic hash tagging. And, um, like I'm gonna knock, I'm gonna lie If I say I know everything about it because, honestly, I hired this girl. She's dame Traveller on instagram. She was, like, 200 something 1000 followers. And so I'm like, whatever you say, but she she goes through and really strategically hashtags. And that helps to stay relevant on the top of the search list. I'm gonna I'm gonna die a little bit more than because there's a couple really cool tips I can tell you with Instagram about being more searchable for travel brands. We'll get into that tomorrow, but, uh, yeah, I mean, to be honest, it all of you, I would say my advice is to go through your instagram and honestly, you can, like, delete out Ah, lot of stuff that is older and doesn't work with your If it doesn't work with your style if all of you should probably just go home if you're doing instagram like look at it as a whole, like somebody would be scrolling through instagram. And if things pop out or don't look good to start deleting him like a lot of them aren't even searchable anymore. And so it's better that clean up your instagram and just keep posts that are really, really curated and good, and you can even add hashtags of them and stuff like that. But I think cleaning it up and then just moving for being a strategic about your house shagging will help you a lot with being searchable on Instagram. So a couple more from the Internet? Um, somebody's asked. Karen is asking if you use any sort of light room plug ins toe help you with your instagramming. Do you have any shortcuts like that? Not through light room with my instagram. Me? Honestly, I'm just doing I'm scouring travel sites and, uh, like I don't want to give away tips right now. Uh, I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this, but I'm kind of just strategically like attacking Brandt brands that I want to be aligned with on Instagram and I'm finding out like I'm looking at hash tags on their site and I'm copying them or looking at things that are trending. And for me, that's like That's helping me a lot. I'm not really using any plug ins or anything like that. I don't even really helped me with that question. All right, let me see. So we have a question here from Colby. Um, and they're saying as a beginner slash intermediate photographer, How do you know that you're taking quality images like, How do you know that your image quality is good enough? Teoh submit. When do you get to that point? And how do you tell? That was a really good question going back to having some sort of businessman tour. I think it's really important to have somebody else look at your work and critique it and give you ideas. I think it's great to take out somebody for lunch and awesome like, give you a portfolio review. Look at it, especially someone who maybe is writing articles and is doing stuff. I'm more than happy if they want to reach out to me directly an email me and take a look at their work and give them feedback. I'm more than happy to do that, but it's important because you know you get, like, so emotionally attached to some of your trips in your images, and it's hard to like step outside of the box and see it as an editor would. And so asking an editor to look at your stuff, not someone you actually submitting to, but someone maybe like a friend or someone to look at it and give you an outside perspective is really important. But being a beginner is actually kind of value, a really, really powerful place to be. I think it's harder to be someone that's been shooting for 16 years and all of a sudden needs to rebrand themselves, then someone who's starting out. And you have all the power in the world to create yourself exactly how you want to be right now, like your fresh like you can literally post whatever you want, create whatever like aura and brand you want around yourself, and you don't have to kind of unbranded ourself from years worth of works. I think she's actually in a great place to start. She just needs someone to really help her carry her images and just pick and submit. The best ones were actually talk about that later, too. So there's a service that can help her do that. That helps, like a photography service. But I'll mention later on. It's in the bonus materials to, um, it's called art Life in Business. And it's Blair Delevingne Fellas usedto own Junebug weddings, which is a really popular wedding blawg. And she now does photography photographer consulting where she does exactly that, helps photographers curate Submit gives him business advice. She awesome also is doing, Ah, helping you, like, just right press about yourself and just really hone in on your style the way you describe yourself. But she also is launching a company called Princely, and she's going to be featuring photographers and selling their art as fine art. So I will be one other future photographer isn't really excited. Going back to that list of like trying to do one thing towards all my five goals. Joining princeling and starting the sell by fine art was one of those