Selling photos to newspapers?

Jackobyte

Firstly, I have never sold photos before. I'm a 15 year old just getting into photography and I only got my camera for Christmas so I am new to this business.

Today I got pictures of a hotel on fire. There was no one else taking pictures of it while I was there and I left when the smoke stopped so I am the only photographer with pictures as it was billowing smoke. If I wanted to sell these pictures to some local papers, how should I go about it?

Should I email them copies of the pictures containing watermarks? (can I do this just by adding text to the photo and playing with colour and hardness until it is translucent, then flattening it down to one layer?)

Then if they wanted the pictures, I could email them the original pictures.

What is the going rate for pictures. Can I charge different rates, such as €x for just the picture and €y for an exclusive on the picture? Or is there a rule that if you sell a picture to one paper, you can't sell it to another?

How do you receive payment? Do you get them to send out a cheque or do you call into their office or do they work with Bank Giro's, Bank Drafts, etc.?

Thanks in advance,
Jack.

PCPhoto

I can send it on your behalf .... and if you get printed ... will show you who to invoice and how.

or contact Press22 in Limerick and ask them if they want to buy the images or do a split if they get printed....you'll get the phone number online or in the phone book.

unless its a major news story the national papers are unlikely to use pics of a building on fire

if someone has died as a result of the fire or it was caused by arson then maybe they would use it.

EDIT: images sent to the papers must NOT be excessively processed or watermarked - slight adjustments like sharpness, cropping andadjust brightness/contrast are acceptable....but kept to a minimum.

PCPhoto, seen as you obviously know you're stuff, what kinda photos would you send. Obviosuly paper's aren't looking for photos of brilliantly composed photographs, but it seems like it'd be fairly easy to follow around AGS or the Coast Guard for a little while and take photos. You'd be bound to get something worthwhile sooner or later.

Would i be right in assuming the most important factor is just getting your photos to your chosen paper before anyone else?

PCPhoto

I normally deal with news and sports images.

I cover local games for The Herald and The Star at the weekend and during the week I cover news events, courts and concerts.

what I've done for boardsies in the past is send the images through me to the national papers, some of the papers have filters and don't accept random images from unrecognised sources.

I've been working as a professional photographer for over 10yrs.

PCPhoto, seen as you obviously know you're stuff, what kinda photos would you send. Obviosuly paper's aren't looking for photos of brilliantly composed photographs, but it seems like it'd be fairly easy to follow around AGS or the Coast Guard for a little while and take photos. You'd be bound to get something worthwhile sooner or later.

Would i be right in assuming the most important factor is just getting your photos to your chosen paper before anyone else?

best of my knowledge its illegal to follow emergency services around !! ....lol... can just see ya swimming after the coast guard trying to keep up...or even in a normal boat trying to follow em.... they go into a lot of dangerous water...as for following the gardai around....yeah... good luck with that !! lol

one of the important factors is getting a GOOD image into the papers fast - it all depends on what you are sending and when, post processing is a definate no-no, some photographers (who dont supply to the papers) post process to give colour casts or clone bits and pieces out.... thats NOT allowed for press work, the image is supposed to goto the papers in the same or similar way to when it was taken.