If you are seriously into being a freelance writer, you will sooner or later have to do a travel assignment. If you are lucky, you will get your expenses paid up front, but often you will have to get them reimbursed by your client. They will always pay a lot more if you include your own original travel photography snapshots instead of just sending copy. But you want to be sure about that with your client before you cart an expensive camera along with your luggage.

Get It In Writing

The actual taking of the pictures is the easiest part of travel photography. If you’ve ever taken clear, focused and colorful photographs for your own pleasure or to chronicle your vacations, then you already know what you need to do for decent travel photography. The hard part about travel photography for freelance writers is getting paid for it.

The golden rule of freelancing is “Always get it in writing.” NEVER assume that the editor will honor a verbal contract or even terms loosely given during one email exchange about copy or photography. You need to be crystal clear about what you are going to be paid for on an assignment and what you aren’t going to be paid for.

Things you need to get crystal clear in travel photography for your articles include (but are not limited to):

How much you will get per photo
Are there any specific subject matters the editor wants?
What format is needed for submission
When you will get paid
Who will hold the copyright to your travel photography?

Take Many Pictures

In any professional photography area, you will need to take scads and scads of photos in order to find the one or two that will perfectly illustrate your piece. You might be the one who makes the final decision as to which of your photos run and which don’t. That is usually up to the photo editor (if your publication has one). This also could be the graphic artist or the travel editor, depending on the title. If it is a very small publication, than the editor in chief might also be the layout editor and the photo editor.

See if you can get to send digital photographs. In this way, you can download your travel photography onto your laptop and then email them to your editor (or whoever) in order to get the piece done even before you have to come home.

In the voting for top honors in famous photography, a lot of votes would surely go to “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. There have even been reenactments of this most unique of famous photography, as well as a Clint Eastwood movie, “Flags of Our Fathers” (2006). It was not exactly your regular travel photography assignment.

You’ve Seen It

In case you are wondering what this most famous of famous photography images looks like, let’s refresh your memory. It is a stark black and white photograph of six United States Marines pushing to raise a battle-scared American flag and pole into the sand and twisted landscape. The flag is rising towards a bright white sky. It looks as if the Marines are having a tough time raising the flag.

Why So Popular

What makes a picture enter the realms of famous photography? Part of it is that it captures the essence of a huge event into one image. “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” is considered the iconic image of World War II, even though this happened on the Japanese front and not the European front, where most of the action was. Somehow, despite all of the odds, the good guys won.

Another element that makes a picture rise to the ranks of famous photography is that it has a certain timelessness, using symbols that talks to our collective unconscious. Flags are included in that silent pictorial language. It is known to many cultures that flags mean victory. Raising the flag, family crest or shield of your army or side onto the enemy territory was the ultimate declaration of victory.

Brief History

This elite specimen of famous photography is actually the second raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. However, this was the time the island was finally won. The flag was raised inside of a Japanese pipe. The image was so startling and so triumphant that it was published in newspapers a mere seventeen and a half hours after it was taken, at a time when it normally took a couple of days for news photographs to be published.

The photo was so good that it was accused of what all famous photography is accused of - being faked. Although there are many famous photos that have been set up (Marilyn Monroe over the steam grating comes to mind), Joe Rosenthal and the three Marines that survived World War II were able to testify that it wasn’t. It was just one of those things.

The Center for Creative Photography is in the prestigious University of Arizona Libraries in the United States of America. Although some art historians would argue that a museum devoted to creative photography should really be in Europe, where photography originated, the University of Arizona beat them to it. However, the Center for Creative Photography is devoted to works of twentieth century North American photographers. So, that should keep the Europeans happy.

Where Exactly Is It?

Although listed as being at the University of Arizona Libraries, the Center for Creative Photography is not exactly open to the public like other art libraries. There isn’t any money or manpower to keep a proper museum up and running in a way that the images inside deserve. But to lock the photographs inside of a bank vault away from those who love photography would be cruel. So, the Center for Creative Photography came up with a compromise.

You have to make an appointment in order to see the collection. If you are alone or in a group, you definitely need to make an appointment and expect to be chaperoned throughout. You will be escorted to see some of the 80,000 pieces of artwork and can make requests to focus on particular North American photographers such as Ansel Adams, Josef Breitenbach, Aaron Siskind, William Mortensen, Frederick Sommer and W. Eugene Smith.

For Researchers

If you are a researcher, then you need to make special plans with the Center of Creative Photography in order to be able to access its vast archives instead of just looking at the more famous photography images that most casual visitors want to see. You also can have access to the written works from and about the photographers as well as negatives. You still need to make an appointment. Please don’t just show up unannounced. They hate that.

The Center for Creative Photography is open weekdays from 10am to 4pm. It is not open on weekends ever. If you go to the Center for Creative Photography’s website, you can view a comprehensive index of all of the materials in their incredibly vast archives. Depending on what your research subject is, you might be eligible to apply for a research grant, funded by Polaroid. Again, you need to see the website for details.

The Center for Creative Photography is the largest collection of its kind in the world and they keep as close an eye on it as possible, because they know their duty for posterity.