I recently received an email from a UK news agency based in Birmingham and I was wondering whether anyone here has had any first-hand experience of working with them or have heard anything about them from others.
The email reads as follows:
“Hi Ashley
Just a quickie to say that I spotted your great images of a tiger shaking off water after taking a dip.
I own a photo agency based in the UK but syndicating images worldwide and would love to work with and see if we can firstly get your images published in newspapers and magazines and secondly ....make you some money.
Our webpage is www.catersnews.com if it helps to explain who we are and what we do.
If you are interested....please email me at davidburner@catersnews.com so we can proceed … ”
While I hadn't planned to work with any stock agencies or the like, I have to admit this does sound quite interesting, but having been contacted out of the blue by a company I've never heard of, I am a little sceptical and I certainly don't wish to jump into something I might end up regretting later.
Any thoughts of opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time in advance.
I've written back to David with a some personal history (so he knows a bit more about me and the direction I'm heading in with my photography) and explaining my reasons for previously not wanting to work with stock agencies, while also making it clear that I am interested in hearing more about their company and how he feels this could develop into a mutually beneficial relationship.
He responded in a timely manner with this:
"Great email Ashley and I prefer people to write more and honestly rather than short and miss out the important points
Please note . . We are not a stock library ! ! Ha ha !
They are completely different to us in that they rely on people uploading to their photo system and just sit back waiting for clients to search their system
We proactively source good images and stories and get them sent out and published quickly. We are in fact a news agency covering every news story in the world from Japanese tsunamis to celebs.
I love your image and would love to help you start making money off your pix
I'm out of the office today hopefully securing syndication deals so using my mobile so can I contact you tomorrow to discuss how we could proceed.
We are not mega fussy on cropping or colour correction on images . . . We just want winning shots !
Let's speak tomorrow and hopefully link up ... "
It all seems positive thus far, although obviously I'll need to know specifics of how they operate and how much control I'll have over the images (and perhaps wording of articles) I share with his agency before we proceed any further; I'd love to think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship that will be profitable for them as well as me for years to come, but I've had a couple of previous experiences with media before that enabled me to see firsthand how things one may say can be edited to suit the publisher's needs at the expense of misconstruing reality, which I'm sure can also apply to photographic images.
I understand from this one needs to allow for a certain amount of misrepresentation - something one has to accept or otherwise simply not to get involved with media in any form - but I think working out some clear guidelines (in writing) from the outset can help to avoid a good number of future situations that could otherwise be rather upsetting.
I'll be happy to keep you posted as things proceed. Thanks again :^)
Basically think about them as being like a picture/news agency - one that holds 'stories' and which 'touts' them around for newspapers and magazines to publish. Basically in the same way that a paparazzi photographer who shoots photos of the latest media stars can 'syndicate' the images and make them available to a wider set of papers/magazines to use. Some sections of the media do 'print' (paper and online) interesting wildlife stories and images - such as the recent case of the zebra which fought back and escaped from a lion.
I guess if he's seen your photos and thinks there's potential to run them, then you've a fair chance. A pet photographer that I know made a reasonable return on some of his images which were 'syndicated' in the UK press - he also got a lot of enquiries for commissions after the items ran.
Discussion
4 repliesThe email reads as follows:
“Hi Ashley
Just a quickie to say that I spotted your great images of a tiger shaking off water after taking a dip.
I own a photo agency based in the UK but syndicating images worldwide and would love to work with and see if we can firstly get your images published in newspapers and magazines and secondly ....make you some money.
Our webpage is www.catersnews.com if it helps to explain who we are and what we do.
If you are interested....please email me at davidburner@catersnews.com so we can proceed … ”
While I hadn't planned to work with any stock agencies or the like, I have to admit this does sound quite interesting, but having been contacted out of the blue by a company I've never heard of, I am a little sceptical and I certainly don't wish to jump into something I might end up regretting later.
Any thoughts of opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time in advance.
Kind regards,
Ashley
Phil.
Dave
I've written back to David with a some personal history (so he knows a bit more about me and the direction I'm heading in with my photography) and explaining my reasons for previously not wanting to work with stock agencies, while also making it clear that I am interested in hearing more about their company and how he feels this could develop into a mutually beneficial relationship.
He responded in a timely manner with this:
"Great email Ashley and I prefer people to write more and honestly rather than short and miss out the important points
Please note . . We are not a stock library ! ! Ha ha !
They are completely different to us in that they rely on people uploading to their photo system and just sit back waiting for clients to search their system
We proactively source good images and stories and get them sent out and published quickly. We are in fact a news agency covering every news story in the world from Japanese tsunamis to celebs.
I love your image and would love to help you start making money off your pix
I'm out of the office today hopefully securing syndication deals so using my mobile so can I contact you tomorrow to discuss how we could proceed.
We are not mega fussy on cropping or colour correction on images . . . We just want winning shots !
Let's speak tomorrow and hopefully link up ... "
It all seems positive thus far, although obviously I'll need to know specifics of how they operate and how much control I'll have over the images (and perhaps wording of articles) I share with his agency before we proceed any further; I'd love to think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship that will be profitable for them as well as me for years to come, but I've had a couple of previous experiences with media before that enabled me to see firsthand how things one may say can be edited to suit the publisher's needs at the expense of misconstruing reality, which I'm sure can also apply to photographic images.
I understand from this one needs to allow for a certain amount of misrepresentation - something one has to accept or otherwise simply not to get involved with media in any form - but I think working out some clear guidelines (in writing) from the outset can help to avoid a good number of future situations that could otherwise be rather upsetting.
I'll be happy to keep you posted as things proceed. Thanks again :^)
I guess if he's seen your photos and thinks there's potential to run them, then you've a fair chance. A pet photographer that I know made a reasonable return on some of his images which were 'syndicated' in the UK press - he also got a lot of enquiries for commissions after the items ran.
Good luck with them!