Proud Photography Blog

When we say ‘submitting’ photos, we mean giving out photos in a professional capacity.

For example, submitting our images to a magazine for consideration.

When submitting our work to a client to review, or entering a competition.  Although you may think it’s as easy as pressing ‘send’ or throwing a print into an envelope, the way to submit the image is very important – think of it as a first impression.

Whenever you submit one of your images for publication or for a competition there will be guidelines to follow.

Even if you can’t see it, there will be some sort of style to follow.  Magazines are particularly picky about things like this – it’s what they call the ‘house style’.

The reason why people have to follow these guidelines is because otherwise the magazine or publishing house would end up with pictures of all files types and sizes – instead they want things to be uniform so they can just pick the ones they like.

If you are entering a competition the guidelines are usually quite clear on the entry form and terms and conditions.  You must always follow them even if you think they are being pedantic.  Say you have a print to enter in to a competition and its 2cms smaller than the size they want – even if they love the shot they can’t let it win simply because it breaks the rules and is unfair to other entrants.  Remember that if there are rules and guidelines and you break them, the company has to stick to them even if your image was the best by far.

When submitting speculatively the guidelines may not be so obvious so you need to look for them. 99% of the time there will be guidelines – rarely is any professional company going to say that you can submit whatever you like however you like.

If you are submitting to a magazine then look inside the front of the cover the Editors letter page.  The rules tend to be there – if you are struggling try their website.

The things you need to know before you submit include:

1.    The size of the image (physical canvas size) if it’s a print they want
2.    The size of the image (MB etc.)
3.    The format they want (prints only? Or digital image by email? Or on a CD?)
4.    Do they need a stamped address envelope to return entries?
5.    Do they have a submission fee?
6.    What is the closing date if it’s a competition?  Make sure it’s in on time or they will not accept your work.
7.    Do you need to include anything else with the image (name, address, contact number?)
8.    Any other restrictions (like if you work for Nikon you can’t enter a competition run by Nikon)

It also goes without saying that you need to make sure your images are sharp, well composed and eye catching!  When submitting work for publication or for competitions you should always aim for something different that really stands out – after all there will be plenty of people going for the obvious images.