Write for Us (But Only If You’re Actually a Photographer)

With the popularity of Light Stalking, we get a ton of requests from photographers and people who write about photography to display their work to the community. As part of the reason for Light Stalking is to “spread the word about the talented people who produce [photography]” this prompted us to sit down and figure out, once and for all, how this can work.

Think you have what it takes to write for Light Stalking?

Light Stalking will be accepting articles, tutorials and collections of photographs for possible inclusion on the main page of the site as part of the Light Stalking Contributor Program – but only if you can stand our rigorous review process.

Now we get pitched with these every day from people hoping to get in front of the huge audience we have here so not everyone is suited to this.

We’re not begging you to do this and we’re not going to make any promises we don’t intend to keep, but we can identify a few compelling reasons that we think any serious up and coming photographer will want to write for Light Stalking.

We Promote Our Contributors’ Work

We know that photographers work damn hard. Producing great content is difficult and it’s nice to get a proper audience for it whether you produce the content on somebody else’s website, a magazine or your own blog.

That is why we make a point of promoting your work when you contribute to Light Stalking.

Each time you write for us, we will actively seek out other cool things you have done online to share with our following on Twitter (which is pretty close to the biggest Twitter following of any photography brand in the world). Usually that means a recent blog post, but it could be something cool you have done on one of your social accounts.

The only thing we insist on here is that you regularly update your own properties – our readers and followers love fresh content and it’s in both our interests to give it to them.

Your Work Will be Seen by the Big Players

Light Stalking has a huge audience and an influential one. We have worked long and hard to make it one of the biggest and best sites on photography on the internet and these days we get seen by some pretty important folks in the industry.

A Built in Audience

If your work gets published on Light Stalking, it will get a lot of eyeballs on it. We are ranked in the top 10 most influential photography brands by Wefollow.com and Klout.com. Traffic is growing steadily. Our social following easily adds another half a million people to that number.

Your Stuff Will Be See by Industry Leaders

We get read by the big players in the industry. Our posts are regularly shared by Adobe, B&H and Digital Photo Magazine. Other regular readers and friends of Light Stalking include That Nikon Guy, Scott Kelby and Darren Rowse of Digital Photography School. We have been picked up in the mainstream in publications from CBS News, CNet, Lifehacker and Gizmodo. Your work will be seen by some major influencers.

There’s not much better social proof or credibility for your Photoshop tutorial than when it gets shared by Adobe, the company who make Photoshop – and that has happened to Light Stalking writers many times.

If you’re interested in your work being seen by lots of people or if your interested in your work being seen by photography thought leaders, then that will almost certainly happen by having it published on Light Stalking.

From the beginning, Light Stalking has forged a reputation for producing the best online content for photography. That is important to us and we will do everything in our power to maintain and extend that reputation. Our writers are part of that legacy and you can be too.

Your Work Will Only Be Among Other Premium Work

One thing we are very conscious of is keeping the quality of content on Light Stalking at the highest possible level. That protects your brand and it protects ours.

You can rest easy knowing that your work will only be associated with others who are at the top of their game.

We Will Fill Our Team Ranks from Our Contributors

Currently, Light Stalking has a stable of 10 paid writers who regularly write content for the site. This is about the right level for us to keep producing the type of content we want at the pace we want to maintain. But writers move on (in fact we kind of encourage our writers to continually seek new and even bigger opportunities). Guess where we will be looking to keep our team filled? That’s right – this very contributor program. Now don’t do it for this alone – the paid positions are sought after and don’t come up very often and are highly competitive (more great photographers and writers apply than leave), but we are hoping the contributor program will be a potential source of talent for us.

What We Accept

Light Stalking excels with certain content. This is what we are looking for.

As stated previously, for the Light Stalking Contributor Program, we will be accepting articles, tutorials and photograph collections.

  • Articles – These can really be anything from an opinion piece on photography through to interesting news pieces. If you’ve got something to get off your chest, these articles can be very popular.
  • Tutorials – This is where Light Stalking shines. If you have a specific “how to” tutorial or would like to share how you achieved a specific result in an image (think “how I shot it”) then our audience loves these.
  • Photo Collections – We will also be accepting themed photographic collections. The twist here though is that we will be requiring each shot to be accompanied by a short commentary of how and why the image was taken.

What Don’t We Accept?

Well, we’re not huge on controversy for its own sake. We like to keep things nice and positive. If you have a square peg that doesn’t fit into one of our round holes, then get in touch and tell what you have in mind. We will take your suggestions for content seriously and consider it.

What Do You Think?

Are you ready to get started?

Great!

Write out your article on a Google doc. Make it shareable and editable by anybody who has the link. Add any images to Google drive and make the folder open to anybody with the link. Make sure you add your byline too. Then email us with the doc and drive links ([email protected]).

Now remember, we get a lot of people pitching us all the time so we will contact you if you have made it with further instructions.