What to do if I get "The shot"?

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Michael
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Like most people on here, I'm an amateur tog, and I always have my camera with me.

Assuming I'm lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and I get "the shot" that somebody (such as the national press) would pay good money for, what do I do after that?
 
I have been to Blyth mate... I wouldn't worry about it :) :)
 
If the shots newsworthy then get it to the local papers as fast as possible.. have all your info in the exif and especialy a no free usage note... dont send a thumbnail or watermark.. send the full image..

if you think it would make nationals then again do same ..maybe follow up wiht a phone call..

but for locals and nationals you will need the picture desk emails... if your already thinking about news pics then you should be finding the emails just in case..

the important thing is to know how to caption and fill out the fields in the exif well the iptc fields .. without that your picture will be next to useless for nationals and used for free without credit with locals

if its mega important shot but not news then agencies but i dont know owt about that..
 
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Interesting stuff, thanks Tony.
 
This is actually a pretty good question and I've got a slightly differing view to this in that I'd be tempted to go straight to social media outlets such as Twitter and get it public first. If it goes viral, normally that would then get the attention of larger media outlets who would then hopefully ask to use the image or video footage. I'm thinking along the lines of when that pilot landed the jumbo jet in the Hudson River in New York City, made the photographer very famous. Don't know about the financial reward but the kudos factor was huge. Depends on what is most important; the money or being known as the person who took 'that shot'.
 
KayJay said:
This is actually a pretty good question and I've got a slightly differing view to this in that I'd be tempted to go straight to social media outlets such as Twitter and get it public first. If it goes viral, normally that would then get the attention of larger media outlets who would then hopefully ask to use the image or video footage. I'm thinking along the lines of when that pilot landed the jumbo jet in the Hudson River in New York City, made the photographer very famous. Don't know about the financial reward but the kudos factor was huge. Depends on what is most important; the money or being known as the person who took 'that shot'.
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Why not have both? Sell it and become renowned for it, rather than stick it on social networks, have it nicked, and become renowned for being the schmuck that gave away the amazing shot. ;)

Try these guys:
http://www.sell-my-photo.co.uk/

Jonathan Hartley, one of the website founders, is a top bloke, and they seem to be very quick to act on your behalf, if you submit the right shot. I don't know what the going rate would be if I had approached a newspaper myself, but the offer they came back to me with was at least three times what I was expecting. :nuts:
 
GrittyShaker said:
Why not have both? Sell it and become renowned for it, rather than stick it on social networks, have it nicked, and become renowned for being the schmuck that gave away the amazing shot. ;)

Try these guys:
http://www.sell-my-photo.co.uk/

Jonathan Hartley, one of the website founders, is a top bloke, and they seem to be very quick to act on your behalf, if you submit the right shot. I don't know what the going rate would be if I had approached a newspaper myself, but the offer they came back to me with was at least three times what I was expecting. :nuts:
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I've seen people put photos up on social networks and would never dream of calling them schmucks, some extremely talented photographers embrace it. From the look of that site you linked I get the impression they're only really after tabloid friendly images. I might be wrong but the impression the site gives isn't a nice one. I'm not sure I'd give them any images regardless of how much money I'd make. But I guess it depends on what we're all after at the end of the day.
 
And I guess that link does seem to address the question the OP asked.
 
great question i have always wondered how to go about this
 
GrittyShaker said:
Yes, I posted it to help the OP, rather than to be condescended to.

Hope you could hear that from up there on your high horse.
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Wow, the sensitive type. Didn't mean to sound condescending. :shrug:
 
I have to admit I usually steer well away from any business that cheesily uses a '4' instead of a 'for'.
 
There are a few agencies that would take stuff on spec if it was properly interesting and going to make them money. Rex Features, Big Pictures and South West News Services (SWNS) spring to mind. All have websites and contact info.

If you've got a really good shot they will market it for you aggressively and take 50% or so, but thats money you'd never get on your own.
 
I'd probably go straight to the press/ newspapers. Or if it was for example, a celebrity then perhaps a magazine...
 
KayJay said:
Wow, the sensitive type. Didn't mean to sound condescending. :shrug:
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Oops. Sorry about that. I had been on the ale all afternoon, and shouldn't have posted it. My apologies. :bonk: They are a decent company to get to do the work for you though, if you have a grab shot of something quirky. It was one of my mediocre POTY entries that I submitted, and genuinely didn't expect any interest at all.

I also agree with Smeggypants, as a general rule. :D Someone else posted the link to the site on here a while ago, and that's why I contacted them. I very much doubt I would have bothered otherwise. The website is cheap-looking, as is the URL and company name (which differ, bizarrely), but the fella I chatted to on the phone, and have been dealing with since, is a genuinely pleasant guy. If I had another quirky shot I wouldn't hesitate to contact them.
 
I watched the documentary that was on a year ago or so on the Big Picture agency, very interesting. Then I noticed if you look in the tabloids the agency used is credited at the bottom of the picture so that would give you some ideas.

I think the obvious mortgage paying shot that was given away was the tourists shots of the Glasgow airport bomber. They had shots of the crashed vehicle, fire, the terrorist on fire, being saved/arrested and those shots went all around the world.
 
Cheers all.

For the record, a photo of a celeb isn't really an issue as I wouldn't know who or what they were unless it was the Stig! I'm thinking more along the same lines as KayJay who referenced the Hudson River plane landing - I travel all over with my job and whilst it's massively unlikely, if anything ever did come along that might earn me a couple of quid, I'd rather know how to proceed before hand.

As a general rule I don't like giving my money to any of the press and very rarely buy a paper, but if I had a shot of public interest and they were prepared to pay me for it, I wouldn't think twice about selling!
 
On a smaller scale Michael, I don't know if you can remember quite a few years ago (maybe 15 years?), when a little boy was crushed at Seaton Sluice. IIRC, the bank collapsed as they were trying to lower a boat into the water with a crane.

I took some photographs with the intention of selling them to the Chronicle and/or Journal. But after I got back home and thought about it, I decided not to. Didn't feel right trying to profit from the tragedy.

If it hadn't been a child I might have felt differently, who knows?
 
Indeed, and it's an important point to make; there's always going to be moral and ethical considerations.

I don't want to sell my soul, but if the alien spaceship lands and returns elvis carrying photographs of the big bang whilst walking his pet dodo, I'd have the camera poised with thoughts of a new Canon L in the back of my mind ;)
 
For general news stuff just go straight to the picture desks. However you have to be fast and it has to be something they wont get anywhere else. In the past I've had some really good news pictures that were much better than what the Getty/AFP syndicated photographers had (I was on the scene well before the AFP photographer and she only caught the end). My images weren't used as the papers pay a retainer to Getty/AFP etc and prefer to use that rather than lay out any extra money (they have none apparently).

If you can get syndicated you won't get as much money but will likely get more sales, although it seems almost impossible to get!
 
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