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Author Topic: Travel magazines  (Read 4819 times)

drmike

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Travel magazines
« on: May 09, 2019, 04:17:26 am »

For reasons best known to herself Mrs drmike subscribes to Conde  Nast Traveller magazine thankfully at a massive discount as it's devoid of content.

However, the photographs are always good and often stunning.

Are the people that take these photographs;

a)  Famous - from a cursory search not often seems to be the answer
b)  Particularly well paid

Or are these dumb questions.

Mike
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Rob C

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2019, 06:10:16 am »

For reasons best known to herself Mrs drmike subscribes to Conde  Nast Traveller magazine thankfully at a massive discount as it's devoid of content.

However, the photographs are always good and often stunning.

Are the people that take these photographs;

a)  Famous - from a cursory search not often seems to be the answer
b)  Particularly well paid

Or are these dumb questions.

Mike


Good questions. I seldom see it these days, but from the very few early ones I saw, I got the impression that the pix were shot as part of fashion assignments originally done for Vogue or sister publications by name photographers, many of whom were bloody marvellous.

As I said, that was long ago.

As there seems to be a lack of money around for the payment of magazine assignments abroad (even back in the day it was usual to have hotels, airlines and tourist boards contribute to defray the cost) it wouldn't at all surprise me to learn that it has become just another vanity space where folks work as they do now for stock: free, or thereabouts.

32BT

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2019, 07:17:21 am »

My professor started his lecture by stating: don't worry about asking a dumb question, I think ALL questions are dumb...

vogue.it seems to have its own space for photographers to present their stuff. Maybe different from other vogue sites, or not. I only recently found out. I might say something really obvious, widely known, and stupid here. Clearly, the photographers present some pretty competitive stuff there.
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drmike

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2019, 08:21:15 am »

But do they get paid a decent amount?
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2019, 09:49:16 am »

But do they get paid a decent amount?

Of course: tons of exposure.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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drmike

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2019, 10:37:35 am »

Thanks for that very interesting.

As ever some do pretty well in terms of hard cash although they do relinquish copyright by and large and some barely cover costs.

You'd have to love what you did to work for some of those rates.

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MattBurt

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2019, 10:57:00 am »

I haven't done any work for that publication but I've had a couple of travel-related images in the in-flight mags. I think the one I have worked with was something like $100 for spot and up to $1000 or so for a cover with varying rates between for half, full, and multi page spreads. I think a half page is the biggest I've gotten so far for non-local pubs.
My role was definitely stock and I think they found me with Google, looking for specific places or themes. Now I'm on a few lists where they ask for images to fit a certain theme a couple of times per year at these standard rates. If I have the images I'll submit and make a few bucks here and there but I'm not quitting my day job any time soon.
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drmike

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2019, 11:02:43 am »

I imagine not at those rates.
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JoeKitchen

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2019, 02:32:22 pm »

Speaking as a professional, travel photography is kind of a mixed bag in terms of where the images actually come from. 

First, any actual site specific images of a hotel or resort more then likely was photographed for the resort.  The resort hired the photographer to create marketing images for them, and got a usage package that probably covered a fairly large amount including publication.  For these assignments, the photographer was probably paid well.

Of course, in addition to photographing the resort for the resort, one might get hired by the architect or designer to do the same thing.  In this instance, it is more then likely the resort would have also paid for usage of the images too, but if not, a magazine wanting to use the images would have had to pay the photographer.  Here, the fee would have been relatively low, and certainly would not have covered the actual cost of the shoot, but that would have already been covered by the commissioning client.  So although low, it's would have been extra gravy for a one time usage, which is not worth that much anyway. 

It is very rare for a magazine today to hire a photographer directly with an appropriate budget to do any kind of resort or travel work, unless the images were in a genre that could be used extensively for a products much more accessible, like fashion.  Hence Rob's suggestions.  Here though, the images would have most likely been used in the fashion magazines first.  If the magazine did in fact send a photographer to only shoot the resort or location, the budget would be very low (in today's market) and the photographer more then likely would be working by himself relying on natural/ambient light. 

Last, there are photographers, who for one reason or another, do quite a lot of traveling independently.  Being photographers, they take pictures while doing so and build up a huge library of images captured in exotic locations.  Editors know this and if they need one or two random pictures of some exotic place no one has ever heard of, more then likely some photographer out there who does a lot of traveling will have already photographed it for himself.  So, they will send out a mass email to a couple hundred photographers (they keep on file) asking if anyone has images fitting this criteria.  When someone does have an image the editor needs, it will be treated as a stock purchase for a one time non-exclusive use. 

There are actually photographers who do only travel photographer like described above and make it work full time.  What they make is not great and it take a fair amount of time to make the connections and library to pull in good money, but surely an adventurous lifestyle to say the least. 
« Last Edit: May 09, 2019, 02:43:31 pm by JoeKitchen »
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Rob C

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2019, 03:06:46 pm »

There were photographers doing travel stock well, long before digital came crashing in through the windows to ruin the money side of stock photography.

Agencies such as Image Bank, FPG, Stone carried guys specialising in that field - no pun etc. - and I thnk they did well, at least well enough to keep doing it year after year.

Pin-ups also provided a good genre for making money, and agencies such as Globe had a roster of shooters associated with the movie business, guys such as Peter Gowland, Peter Basch and Don Ornitz were very connected and did quite pioneering photography in their day; it all worked nicely and everybody made a living. So what happened, he asks...

Rob

Peter McLennan

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2019, 08:06:41 pm »

So what happened, he asks...

Tony Soprano said it about two decades ago:  "Fuckin' Internet"
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drmike

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2019, 02:45:13 am »

Thanks Joe that was very enlightening. I have a better idea of who does what for what now.

The magazines I mentioned really do seem to have high visual production standards and the photography is what makes the tripe my wife gets work. The words are by and large vacuous and it seems to me the the content is based on freebies the staff received and their friends ventures. A total waste of money. But the photographers do seem to make the effort to produce some eye catching and interesting images.

Mike
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Rob C

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2019, 09:09:00 am »

Thanks Joe that was very enlightening. I have a better idea of who does what for what now.

The magazines I mentioned really do seem to have high visual production standards and the photography is what makes the tripe my wife gets work. The words are by and large vacuous and it seems to me the the content is based on freebies the staff received and their friends ventures. A total waste of money. But the photographers do seem to make the effort to produce some eye catching and interesting images.

Mike

That's the glossy world: aspirational. They give you the appetite and they make the money, whilst you get the urges and the dissatisfaction with the status quo.

How can they go wrong?

Petrus

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #14 on: May 11, 2019, 01:42:14 am »

I sometimes leaf through the glossy travel magazines, but they leave me feeling empty. "Travel" in those magazines means luxury resorts and cruises, not experiencing real culture and local life. Probably people who go exploring and backpacking to remote places just do it and do not read Conde Nast Traveller for travel ideas. Same problem with yachting magazines: I once piloted (as part of 4 person crew) a Nordhavn 64 from England to Malta (2+ weeks) and the most interesting part for me was the machinery and the daily/weekly maintenance, not to mention running the boat night after night along the quite busy shipping lanes in the Med (and taking part in rescuing African refugees in a tiny rubber boat). Glossy magazines pay no attention to that interesting part of the boats at all, just glorious pictures of the interior shot at harbour. How about 15 foot head waves in pitch black with only a radar, AIS plotter and infrared camera as "eyes", while trying not to fall off the chair.

To add: What I mean by comparing these two is that, for me at least, the part of the "travel" or "boating" with is pictured and written about in these magazines is NOT the essence of travel (or boating). It is experiencing new things, not just a more luxurious version of the same same. Even hardship and "adventure". Conde Nast Traveller does not run articles about finding new shortcut routes in the Nepal Himalaya and having to sleep in caves. So I have to do it myself (like I did last Nov-Dec).
« Last Edit: May 11, 2019, 03:41:33 am by Petrus »
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Rob C

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2019, 03:53:00 am »

That's because you are looking at the experience from a different perspective.

From the yacht owner's perspective, he wants to be able to leave Palma and go to Porto Cervo without worrying about whether the engines will break down or not: it's what he employs a skipper and/or engineer to do. Let's not even go into the argument about motor or sail!

When I was working, we went to the best hotels wherever the gig was; the client - if he came along - expected no less for himself. I have been to crappy hotels in my life, I have slept in a tent or two in the UK as in India and Kenya. You can keep the damned things, their built-in tarantuals (okay, smaller than that) that live in the pockets and flaps, that nest in the duckboards on which you are supposed to stand for that shower that comes out of a bucket and pipe system.  Ninety-nine percent of making money is to get your ass out of poverty and all the stuff that lives alongside it.

There may reside a masochist within some of us; rule me an exception!

Slagging of people who can afford comfort and expect it is misguided at best, misplaced arrogance at worst.

;-)

Rob

KLaban

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #16 on: May 12, 2019, 04:43:58 am »

My grievance with much 5 star luxury is that it is not of-the-place.

A couple of years ago we were given a subscription to The Traveller Magazine: truth told it is a piece of fluff.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2019, 04:48:09 am by KLaban »
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Rob C

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #17 on: May 12, 2019, 09:06:02 am »

My grievance with much 5 star luxury is that it is not of-the-place.

A couple of years ago we were given a subscription to The Traveller Magazine: truth told it is a piece of fluff.

Having been to both Bombay and Calcutta, I'm more than happy to have resided in hotels that were not of the place; I'd opt to leave those genuine pleasures to the souls of Mother Teresa and her acolytes.

Regarding magazines, I pretty much abandoned all of them when I stopped buying French PHOTO for the same reasons my wife-as-schoolgirl abandoned her women's magazines: repetition. How many times does anyone need to read about the advantages of breast milk or where to buy the use-once-then-burn white dress that marks the supposedly best day of a woman's life? The best things about those women's mags were the non-photographic illustrations for the inevitable romantic fables.

Hotels have made wonderful locations for photography; the Costa Smeralda's Cala di Volpe's exterior is modelled after a walled village far more convincingly than is the faux exterior of the entire tourist trap that's Carcassonne! It's interior is expensively rustic, something we tried to replicate with our own terrace when we bought here in Mallorca. Didn't work: not money enough and not the artist enough to pull it off. Years later, I got rid of the entire terracotta tiling and settled for durable, factory tiles.

Reaching back into local history works if you have access to the right resources; even then, adapting those to chime with contemporary expectations of comfort is one huge challenge. No point in spending money to end up authentically uncomfortable.

Below a shot from Cala di Volpe beyond its facade; model was the delectable Jackie Jones:

Rob

P.S.

They wouldn't let us shoot inside because the calendar was for a lager company; the Aga Khan who owned, developed and tightly controlled the entire Costa Smerald concept couldn't be seen to support alcohol. The bars inside were stocked with anything you ever heard of that could be imbibed. No fool.

« Last Edit: May 12, 2019, 09:18:09 am by Rob C »
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KLaban

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #18 on: May 12, 2019, 09:59:02 am »

Having been to both Bombay and Calcutta, I'm more than happy to have resided in hotels that were not of the place; I'd opt to leave those genuine pleasures to the souls of Mother Teresa and her acolytes.

Regarding magazines, I pretty much abandoned all of them when I stopped buying French PHOTO for the same reasons my wife-as-schoolgirl abandoned her women's magazines: repetition. How many times does anyone need to read about the advantages of breast milk or where to buy the use-once-then-burn white dress that marks the supposedly best day of a woman's life? The best things about those women's mags were the non-photographic illustrations for the inevitable romantic fables.

Hotels have made wonderful locations for photography; the Costa Smeralda's Cala di Volpe's exterior is modelled after a walled village far more convincingly than is the faux exterior of the entire tourist trap that's Carcassonne! It's interior is expensively rustic, something we tried to replicate with our own terrace when we bought here in Mallorca. Didn't work: not money enough and not the artist enough to pull it off. Years later, I got rid of the entire terracotta tiling and settled for durable, factory tiles.

Reaching back into local history works if you have access to the right resources; even then, adapting those to chime with contemporary expectations of comfort is one huge challenge. No point in spending money to end up authentically uncomfortable.

Below a shot from Cala di Volpe beyond its facade; model was the delectable Jackie Jones:

Rob

P.S.

They wouldn't let us shoot inside because the calendar was for a lager company; the Aga Khan who owned, developed and tightly controlled the entire Costa Smerald concept couldn't be seen to support alcohol. The bars inside were stocked with anything you ever heard of that could be imbibed. No fool.

It's perfectly possible to reside in hotels of-the-place without slumming it, for example, beautiful Riads in Morocco and Haveli in India.

Those very same illustrations were at the time referred to by those who were working in the industry as very women's mag. It was a derogatory term.

Rob, it would seem we live in different worlds. ;-(

But it is the differences between people that makes life interesting ;-)
« Last Edit: May 12, 2019, 10:20:52 am by KLaban »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Travel magazines
« Reply #19 on: May 12, 2019, 12:05:06 pm »

... I'm more than happy to have resided in hotels that were not of the place; I'd opt to leave those genuine pleasures to the souls of Mother Teresa and her acolytes....

Ah, a man after my own heart!

Comfort and luxury all the way! In my early childhood we had an outhouse. No desire whatsoever to go anywhere near that again. Worked all my life to get away from that. I leave it to those born with a silver spoon.

We were once in a Shangri-La hotel in Singapore (five star) and in a momentary lapse of reason succumbed to that mantra "do as locals do" and asked the cab driver to take us to an authentic Chinatown restaurant. The moment we stepped out of the cab and looked inside, we realized our mistake and started running back to catch the same cab. For those who've never been to Singapore, it is a part of town where sewage can still be found flowing in the middle of the street.
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