Travel Photography For Freelance Writers

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 have to travel. Sometimes you will have all of your expenses paid for you, but most of the time you will have to pay for your own expenses and then get them reimbursed. Make sure that you have the deal in writing, you don't want to go and spend your hard earned money, thinking that you will get it back and then find out that you are out of pocket for your photographs.

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.

A handshake deal will always cause you problems, either you or your client will remember something differently. Trust is a good thing, so trust in your contract or written agreement, not in yours or your clients memory or honesty.

If you have agreed to be reimbursed for your travel expenses you must be absolutely sure that you are giving your client what he wants. It is no good going to Spain and writing and taking photographs of the most wonderful things that Spain has to offer if your client wants an article on Portugal.

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 , photographer you are a self employed contractor, you are a businessman, so be business-like.

Business people get paid for what they do, so if you are going to travel, write about and photograph your subject you have to get paid for it. Freelance writing and photography can have residual benefits, your articles and photos can be sold over and over again, if you keep the copyright. Don’t give your copyright away, it may be worth something in the future.

To the uninitiated it may seem a waste of time and effort to take so many pics of the same subject. But it is better to have too many photos than to have the few that you take turn out to be useless and amateurish. Take lots of photos then you won't have to go back to your location to re-shoot if something goes astray.

Use a digital camera. With a digital camera you can take as many photographs as you like, you can select the perfect picture when you get home, at your leisure, and discard the rest if you like. But why discard them when you can store them on a disc and keep them for the future.