New Way to Submit Photos to American Angler

[Phil Monahan]

Our extensive thread on covers got me thinking about ways to better connect with IA’s photographers, and several folks have asked me about how to submit. Most photographers either send a lightbox or mail a CD. Lightbox technology can be pretty clunky to use, and loading a CD and then opening up a bunch of images takes a lot of time out of my day. (Some of you may not know that I am a one-man show.) Plus, neither of these technologies is searchable by subject.

So, I have created a private group on flickr called American Angler Archive. To become a member, I have to send you an invitation. You’ll need a flickr account (which is free) if you don’t already have one.

My flickr name is phil.monahan. Search for me and make me a contact, and then I will send you an invitation to the group. (I’m pretty sure that this will work)

Once you are a member of the group, you can upload photos. The idea here is that I will have a searchable archive of the whole IA group, but the archive not be for public consumption. That way, when I need a particular image, instead of having to visit each photographer’s Web site and page through images, I can go to the single archive and search for what I need. If I buy one photograph from you, it’ll probably have been worth your time.

Here are the rules:

1. Please upload only your best work, the real publishable stuff.

2. In order for the search function to really work, you’ll have to tag each photo, and the tags should be standardized. for each image, tag it with:
General kind of fishing: coldwater, warmwater, or saltwater
Specific kind of fishing: river, stillwater, stream, tailwater, etc.
General kind of fish: trout, salmon, bass, etc.
Specific kind of fish: brook, brown, rainbow, smallmouth, largemouth, bluegill, etc.
General Location: East, West, South, Midwest, Argentina, New Zealand, etc.
Specific Location: Madison River, Lake Taupo, etc. (You can leave this blank if it’s a secret).
Season: obvious.
Potential Use: Cover, TOC, spread.

So, if you have an gorgeous vertical image of a brown trout caught on the White River in Arkansas in February, the tags would look like this:

Coldwater
River
Tailwater
Trout
Brown
Midwest
White River
Winter
Cover

Now, these are the MINIMUM tags required. Flickr allows 75 tags per image. If you want to add things like state, kind of fly used, woman, etc., knock yourself out. The more tags there are, the more likely your image will come up in a search.

So when I need an image, aside from putting out the regular photo call, I’ll be able to search this group. When I see an image I like, I’ll send an email asking you to send me a hi res.

Here are our published photo rates:

Cover: $700
Spread: $350
Single page: $250
Half page: $100

What do you guys think? Does this seem like a good idea?

Thanks,

Phil

[gregg mckee]

Thanks Phil, count me in.

[John Bennett]

My 2 copper.

I think its brilliant and if other ADs get wind don’t be surprised if they borrow the idea.

Just one thought right off the top.
Due to the typical rights being NAFSRs. Can we have a way of flagging our photos for you if they happen to get sold somewhere down the road whether its due to someone perusing out site o another photo call etc??

J

[Corey Kruitbosch]

Fantastic .. I love the idea!

Edit: I was wondering if would it be possible to also get a few examples of TOC shots posted along with the cover shots that you already put up on flickr?

[Phil Monahan]

John,

I think you can nix any of your own photos from the list at any time. There’s a little X button that deletes images.

That said, I’d like to add a couple of caveats:

1. I reserve the right to delete any images that I don’t think are up-to-snuff. This is not meant as an insult to the photographer, but as a way to maximize the effectiveness of the archive. Please do not take it personally, and if you want to know why I’ve nixed one of your images, I’ll be glad to discuss it.

2. Since I made this a very public offering, who knows who’s going to get involved, so I reserve the right to ban anyone who abuses the archive in any way. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure what someone could do–upload porn or offensive material, I guess–but I want it to be clear up front that I hold that power.

That said, I’m excited by the prospect of bringing a whole new group of shooters into AA.

Good luck!

Phil

[Phil Monahan]

if other ADs get wind don’t be surprised if they borrow the idea.

I won’t tell if you won’t tell.

[Bryan Gregson]

WOW…great idea! Kudos for thinking outside the box.

[John Bennett]

Mums the word Phil.

Honestlyly, this is one those things that seems so obvious now that its “out there” I’d be surprised if it doesn’t grow into something better over time that other ADs mimic in some shape or form.

It streams lines some ineffeciences with emails, ftps, cds. And thats from my PoV as someone trying to do Freelance for a handful of magazines. Some want just a few jps at a time, some want no less than 50 at a time ….Then I always wonder if the CDs been received or mis routed on those occasions I don’t hear back.

I can only imagine how it might help ADs
From server space to photogs doing the tagging under a set format etc, etc.

2. Since I made this a very public offering, who knows who’s going to get involved, so I reserve the right to ban anyone who abuses the archive in any way. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure what someone could do–upload porn or offensive material, I guess–but I want it to be clear up front that I hold that power.

As you should, inlcuding the right to nix any that dont hold up. It could grow into a rather large database. Your times money and we all understand that or should.

J

[Douglas Barnes]

Excellent! Thanks Phil.

[Mike McKeown]

I would love to join, maybe not to post today, but to learn and maybe post in the near future.

Hope you allow international photos??

[Morsie]

J guess it is “American Angler” but think of the world as your oyster.

Morsie

[Phil Monahan]

Hope you allow international photos??

Of course. Any and all are welcome. Doubt we’ll be using much tigerfish or payara, though.

[brian porter]

Great idea!

[Chad Simcox]

Great idea Phil!

I added you as a contact on Flickr.

http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.

http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox Instagram

[Corey Kruitbosch]

Hope my ‘flood’ wasnt to much…

[john michael white]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what does TOC stand for?

[Zach Matthews]

Table of Contents.

🙂

Zach

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