Mother Jones magazine is starting a Photo of the Day photo blog. I’m here to solicit submissions.

Right up front I will say that we are not paying for photos that we run on the photo blog, but we also aren’t making any kind of rights grab either. I know that’s less-than-ideal and if I had any control at all over the budget (hey, I’m a glorified intern), I would make sure the photographers got paid. But I don’t.

However, if you have good photos that are languishing on your hard drive, that have yet to be seen by anyone aside from friends, family and a few editors, please send them our way. If you want to get a little exposure, get your work seen, this is an easy way to do that.

We’re simply asking people to submit photos they think would fit in with the general idea of what Mother Jones is about and fits in line with our coverage. We’re looking for political photos, photos that deal with social issues, the military, the environment, labor concerns, newsy photos, but also fun photos – Americana, daily life from around the world, the offbeat. We’re pretty open. Great photos that tell a story in a single image are hard to come by and thus appreciated…but that’s what we’re trying to get.

You can see what we have so far here: http://www.motherjones.com/photos. The site isn’t officially live yet, and is kind of just larded up with my own pictures and those taken by people around the office. We’d like to make it live before Christmas and hope to get a number of outside submissions before then.

Here’s how to submit photos:

1. If you have a Flickr account, the best way to submit photos is via the Mother Jones group on Flickr. Simply post your images to the group and we will put our favorites up on the Photo Blog. Easy. These submissions get first priority.

2. If you host your photos somewhere besides Flickr, or want to send photos directly to us, use the form on this page. These are likely to take longer to get posted to the Photo Blog.

3. You can email photos to me at: mmurrmann motherjones.com. Please put “Photo Blog” in the subject line of the email. Please, please, please do not send me a ton of gigantic photos. Keep them tightly edited and at a reasonable file size.

All photos should be at least 500px at their longest side, saved in JPEG format. Anything smaller, or sent in any other format will not be posted to the Photo Blog. Any photos that are too large are subject to the mood of the Photo Blog administrator and may or may not be posted. Please try to properly size your submissions.

Include your name, a link to your website (if you have one), title of your photo and all relevant caption information. If you submit photos via Flickr, include the caption information in the description field for the photo. Otherwise, please include it in your form submission. Photos without any caption information will not be posted.

Please be selective in editing. Do not send a number of photos of the same scene, unless it is part of a photo story/essay.

Yes, we do accept submissions for photo essays for the Photo Blog and the Mother Jones website. When submitting photo essays, please specify whether we have permission to run the photos on the website, or whether you’re only submitting the essay for publication in the magazine. Include a story synopsis as well as caption information. If we intend on running your photo essay on the website, we will be in touch prior to posting it. Please note: we do not pay for photos we run on the Photo Blog – whether a single image or essay.

Please do not email to ask if we received your submission or when it will be posted. At this point, most submissions will run within a week or two. Timely photos of breaking events will run sooner than photos with a longer shelf life.

Thanks. And feel free to spread the word.