Looking for Asia Editorial Work

Interesting business plan you have there Emmanuel. I unfortunately have to live in a world where I have to charge for my work. Offering to work for expences only you bring down the whole market. No wonder budgets are getting tighter and tighter and its the photographers fee that is always the first to be cut.

Work for expences? Total re – think Emmanuel, are you a charity or photographer?

Hello Emmanuel,
How about coming along on the 31st to this. http://www.lightstalkers.org/tokyo_based_photog_s___lets_talk_business

Not a charity, I just have enough contacts to sell my work through other means. Every year I shoot four Pro-Bono assignments. The photos I get from “these free assignments” are a nice addition to my stock list.

It’s true, the pay isn’t worth mentioning, normally travel expenses and some form of per-diem. The sales from the trip more than make up for the initial up front loss. I also make some great contacts that do hire me with bigger and better projects.

How many images do you need to sell at $2.00 a peice to make a decent stock list? http://www.fotolia.com/id/160805.

Do you have a website or some images for your gallery that might make it easier to understand what kind of work you are doing?

I don’t submit to Fotolia anymore, they didn’t make me enough money. But I do submit some of my stuff to Shutterstock and Isctock. I make roughly 1700.00 American a month with them and I don’t plan on cutting them out of my income flow. Just an avenue to selling things that I don’t sell other ways.

I also sell Fine Art type photography here in Okinawa through various local businesses. Standard stuff, restaurants, libraries, wedding shops, and other places people frequent hang my work with contact info and I make regular sells or recruit models.

For the Fine Art portraits, I find local models and shoot their portfolio images at no charge. For their time, they get a CD, sometimes prints. For my time, I get a model release. I shoot about two models a month for free, the long term financial rewards are more then the what those models would pay for a portfolio. Pretty much like my “volunteer” assignments.

The editorial stuff I shoot from these type of assignment are sold to magazines and newspapers. Often with a story to accompany the photos, but sometimes independently. My work has appear in Chinese, American, Japanese, and various expat publications. Just had a front page with “Stars and Stipes.” The pay was crap, but the exposure resulted in some sales.
Last year, I took two of these assignments and the sales from photos and stories reached 20,000 American to date. When you consider I was gone less then 30 days on the assignments combined, it was lucrative.

I am not sure why so many of you are worried about my income anyways. Trust me when i say I am not starving. I am selective of my clients. I tend to shoot these for organizations that couldn’t afford my or your services otherwise.

Next month I will be accompanying a local Missionary group to Vietnam. They will be providing medical and dental service while they do their mission work. I am going on the trip with expenses covered. One week with them, paid, and four days on my own after they leave.
It’s a win situation. They get quality images at a cost they can afford, and I get to grow my portfolio at little to no cost no out of pocket expense.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a website, but I am currently designing one. Hope to have it up and running before August. If I don’t, I will outsource it.