Freelance writing or Photography, which will be your chosen career path. If you love to write it is a cinch to take the accompanying photographs, and if photography is your passion why not write about the things that you are photographing.
As a freelance writer you will get paid a lot more if you include original photographs from your travel assignment. Be sure that your client is willing to pay extra for any photographs attached to your assignment, you don’t want to go to the added expense and risk of carrying an expensive and heavy camera with you if you aren’t going to be paid for the photos.
Adding photographs to your articles adds value, and therefore you should get paid accordingly. Both you and your client will want to be sure that your agreement is in writing and covers all of the contingencies.
Rule number 1 of freelance writing is “Get It In Writing” and get a signature. The days are gone when you could do a deal with a handshake and then be sure that it will be honored. You need to have the offer in writing, better still, in an email, detailing everything.
Location, subject, theme, time span and especially dollars, all this should be set out in writing before you go buying your own ticket for the travel. Sending off an email advising the editor of your fees and conditions won’t do the job, you have to get an email from the client agreeing to your conditions, or offering his own conditions.
If it isn’t in the contract and your client doesn’t like the final outcome he may refuse to pay up simply because it wasn’t in your contract. As a freelance writer you are a self employed contractor, you are a businessman, so be business-like.
Some editors will want the copyright of any of the photos that you take. If you can avoid it never sell your copyright, let alone give it away. As a newcomer you will feel under pressure to hand over your copyright to your employer, don’t. A professional will never give away his rights and will only sell them for a large fee.
All professional photographers take lots of photos of the same subject, this is to eliminate the possibility of any mistakes or flaws that may show up when you have left the scene. Why spend unnecessary money going back to the location of the photo shoot just because the pic isn’t quite the way you would like it.
This is why digital photographs have become much more popular. Taking hundreds of photos on film was a very expensive exercise. With a digital camera you can take thousands of photos, download them onto your computer, chose the ones that you want to keep and discard the rest and it wont cost you a cent.
