So You Want to be a Professional Travel Photographer?

This exciting market has major challenges and big rewards.

- Maria Piscopo

GETTING WORK AS A TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER has never been easy. Today, factors of the economy and technology have added obstacles that require even more knowledge and planning. The five travel photographers we interviewed work with clients ranging from editorial to corporate and advertising.

Shutterbug: What percentage of your travel photography is licensed for stock vs. assignment and what type of clients do you usually work with? Also, how do you feel about pursuing travel photography/writing assignments?

Dennis Cox: Currently I am the official photographer and a featured writer for AllThingsCruise.com. Except for a recent writing and photography assignment for them, I have not done assignments for about a dozen years. When I stopped taking assignments, I then concentrated on producing stock with licensing to magazines, corporate publications, calendar publishers, textbook publishers, tour companies for brochures, and for photo books. I have recently been making my newest transition to a new style of travel photographs which I call “photo art paintings,” either shot in camera as an “HDR painting” or by converting existing images, especially iconic travel subjects, with software that produces a variety of painting styles, such as oils, pastels, watercolors, etc. I have been marketing these as stock for publication on my website, through ImageBrief, for prints through FineArtAmerica.com, and with my own line of fashion designs through the online custom marketer VIDA Voices Design Studio.