[desertscape]

Over the years, many of the long established US travel magazines have shrunk in size. There has been a shift to electronic versions of magazines, so that has caused a drop in subscriptions. The slump in the national economy has caused less disposable income and less travel. However there seems to be another reason why subscriptions have lagged. While there is some talent among travel shooters, far too often I see shots that are an embarrassment to the profession. They are basically snap shots. Readers of magazines want to see shots that took some planning and thought. They want to see beautiful shots that they themselves could not shoot. In a magazine like "Arizona Highways", one sees well thought out shots taken by talented shooters. In a magazine like "Islands", one finds a mix of snap shots and a few well composed shots. The talent level goes from excellent to junk. After looking at some of these lousy shots, I have to ask myself, how in the world did they get hired? How can the magazine pay these jokers for mediocrity? Obviously talent is not a major consideration. My guess is that cronyism is a factor in their employment. Unfortunately, all this tarnishes the photography profession and makes for a declining publication.

[jatrax]

I have to ask myself, how in the world did they get hired? How can the magazine pay these jokers for mediocrity?

How do you know anyone actually got hired? Many (most) of those shots are stock images available online for peanuts, maybe $5 or less. And images in an article may include stock images even if the author was there and took photos as well. I have an image published in the Wall Street Journal as part of an article on Puerto Rico. Most of the shots in the article are from the author but they used mine as the lead image, even though I did not get a photo credit.

Here is the image: Insider's Guide to San Juan | Journal Concierge - WSJ though this is not the article, I cannot find that at the moment, looks like they continue to use my image though and I doubt I'll get paid again.

I'm not all that proud of that image to be honest, it was taken with a k-x and the FA 28-90, which is not exactly pro level gear

[desertscape]

I do look at photo credits in magazines and can assure you that the junk shots I'm talking about were from staff shooters, not stock agencies.
Regarding your k-x; your talent is more important than your gear.

[alamo5000]

Over the years, many of the long established US travel magazines have shrunk in size. There has been a shift to electronic versions of magazines, so that has caused a drop in subscriptions. The slump in the national economy has caused less disposable income and less travel. However there seems to be another reason why subscriptions have lagged. While there is some talent among travel shooters, far too often I see shots that are an embarrassment to the profession. They are basically snap shots. Readers of magazines want to see shots that took some planning and thought. They want to see beautiful shots that they themselves could not shoot. In a magazine like "Arizona Highways", one sees well thought out shots taken by talented shooters. In a magazine like "Islands", one finds a mix of snap shots and a few well composed shots. The talent level goes from excellent to junk. After looking at some of these lousy shots, I have to ask myself, how in the world did they get hired? How can the magazine pay these jokers for mediocrity? Obviously talent is not a major consideration. My guess is that cronyism is a factor in their employment. Unfortunately, all this tarnishes the photography profession and makes for a declining publication.

I have several friends who are travel writers as a profession. 95% of the time these writers bring whatever they can along in way of camera and just shoot what they can. Most are writers first and photographers about a distant 3rd or 4th or more.

The truly talented photographers are doing something else for the most part. The ones that can create art do just that.

And for the record I am friends with several people who fit into the above mentioned categories.

[jatrax]

I do look at photo credits in magazines and can assure you that the junk shots I'm talking about were from staff shooters, not stock agencies.

Then I've no explanation except perhaps the staff shooters are just using cell phone cameras these days? I guess I assumed most of those images would be either freelance or stock. I was not aware travel magazines kept staff photographers anymore. But that's not an area I work in. Is the travel market worth the effort anymore? One thing my partner and I have discussed is doing articles to accompany the images but we really don't how to get started on that.

[johnmflores]

Budgets being what they are these days, sending a writer and a photographer on an assignment is probably a luxury for many pubs so they must choose between a good writer that's an ok photographer or a good photographer that's an ok writer. It's quite hard finding both within the same bag of bones.

More often than not the magazine choose the former because of the pervasive/mistaken idea that giving a good writer a better camera (or for freelancers, imploring that they get one) will result in better pictures. Conversely, nobody thinks that giving the photographer a better laptop or word processing app will result in better writing.

[desertscape]

a good photographer that's an ok writer.

I have done several magazine articles in this mode but you are right, there is rarely a budget for separate writer and photographer. In the case of the snap shots I mentioned above, it was done by a photographer only, not a writer/photographer.