Can someone who knows please provide a step by step guide for submitting photos to AP, including urls for a new user. I am finding it hard to get any information anywhere to get started on this.
Ok, so AP seems a laborious thing to get involved in since I have no intentions of ever being a newspaper photographer.
All I really want is a way to get things submitted to the biggest press agencies that may be news worthy shots. What are the options for the general public.
Unless you have a picture with state-wide or national interest that they didn't already have one of their photographers at (Obama get into a car crash in front of your house?) then they are most likely not interested. They have stringers in every major city and send them to assignments as they are interested. They also buy photos from local newspapers under contract for spot-news stuff.
If you think you are going to routinely submit photos to a major news agency, I am sorry to disappoint you, but it won't happen. It just does not work that way.
If you have a once in a lifetime shot, that nobody else got, then go to a local paper or TV station. If it is of national or international importance, you might try calling CNN or a major newspaper, but it had better be GWB in bed with Osama Bid Laden if you expect to sell it.
I know Ap has like specific FTP sites for photographers that work with them. Each photog has like areas to drop stuff....It's not just a general public submitting type of thing
Hey Napalm, the way the AP works with photographers is you have to contact the local office and speak with one of the editors. If you have experience they will ask you to submit a portfolio and if they have a need in your area and like your work they may and I mean may set you up with an "account" which is just access through FTP via password protect and a standard freelance contract. I have an "account" with them and even then it's still very tough to get your work in. I've been working with the North County Times (2nd largest newspaper in San Diego) for quite a few years and it took forever to get to the AP. If something big enough happens that their interested in it needs to be in their system within hours. Beyond that it becomes yesterdays news. Try Reuters, they have a citizen PJ type set up for "civilians" that you can submit to. Good luck and I hope to see your work their someday.
I got my first AP check when I was 14. That was 45 years ago. Come to think of it, that is the only check I ever got directly from the AP. It was a case of being in the right place at the right time.
I continue with the same question:
I happened to be at the right place for the right picture. I found how to submit it to Reuters through their website, they called me back after 15 minutes and told me they were interested in the photo, the picture got published worldwide.
I couldn't find any way to submit the picture to AP.
Gaby Lastman wrote:
I continue with the same question:
I happened to be at the right place for the right picture. I found how to submit it to Reuters through their website, they called me back after 15 minutes and told me they were interested in the photo, the picture got published worldwide.
I couldn't find any way to submit the picture to AP.
How much did they pay for the picture?
Did they license it, or did you have to give up all rights, etc.
polarbare wrote:
you could become a cnn ireporter possibly.
That's the way news agencies are destroying the income source of thousand of people that live from news photography.
People they are terribly happy when they hear they name when they say something like: "We want to thank Joe Doe, for sending us this great picture". In the meantime the news make money using that photo.
cwebster wrote:
How much did they pay for the picture?
Did they license it, or did you have to give up all rights, etc.
Tell us more, please.
<Chas>
I licensed them for editorial use, I still keep the rights. Now I'll also receive a royalty everytime the picture gets printed again.
"I have no intentions of ever being a newspaper photographer. All I really want is a way to get things submitted to the biggest press agencies that may be news worthy shots. What are the options for the general public?"
So you are a hobbyist, then? As an editor, I sometimes accept "work" from the "general public" and I usually feel pretty crappy about it. Press agencies are set up for working pros and the media outlets they work for. That may sound exclusive and snobbish, but that's the way it is, and for good reason. There are lines, fuzzy as they are, between pro and amateur. One of those lines is the network of press agencies. There are plenty of forums and clubs for hobbyists. Start there. Join Flickr. If you want to shoot professionally, become a professional in that industry.
Again, even a 10 year old can get a picture that is unique. The point with a news photograph is that its life is pretty short. If it doesn't succeed to appear at the next day newspapers, that's it, the chances to sell it are pretty low.
So if anybody in the forum happens to be at the right place, at the right time, to post that picture at a forum, is in my opinion a huge lose to the author of the photograph. Many of us spend 1000's of dollars in equipment, some are not pro's, but just because they don't make a living from their pictures it doesn't mean they HAVE to miss the chance to submit and sell rights of their picture to the news agency.
Of course you can have the sharpest picture of a celebrity or a sport event, but let's get real, there are thousands of those pictures. So even if you send that picture to the news agency it will be rejected. But if that picture has something different from the others, then maybe they will buy it.
In Reuters website you have a link to the editor to submit a picture (to try to sell it, not as a kind of iWitness of the CNN). I sold the rights to Reuters and the picture appeared worldwide, I couldn't find how to do the same with AP.
As an editor, I sometimes accept "work" from the "general public" and I usually feel pretty crappy about it.
Surely it's all about giving your readers/customers the best picture. Shouldn't you be happy if you've done that, no matter where the picture came from?
Press agencies are set up for working pros and the media outlets they work for. That may sound exclusive and snobbish, but that's the way it is, and for good reason.
Not only does it sound snobbish, it also sounds short-sighted and bad business.
