FlyLife is renowned for its high standard of photographic content. Following these guidelines will greatly enhance your chances of having work published.

ARTISTIC

The primary purpose of photos in an article are to illustrate the story, so images supplied must be relevant to the text. A range of shots should be attempted, covering the whole trip, not just the fish caught.

Try to think of the whole set of shots illustrating everything from big to small–

  • The SETTING — wide-angle scenics (preferably including an angler).
  • The ACTIVITY — People casting or playing fish (include something in the background to reinforce the setting).
  • The RESULT — People with fish (should include the species mentioned in the text).
  • The FISH — Whole fish or close-up shots (no dead, bloodied, or poorly handled fish).
  • The DETAILS — Flies, gear and insects/food sources.

Starting with rigging-up, cover the day as things happen – launching the boat, casting, wading, the strike (if you are sight fishing and can set up the shot), playing the fish and landing. For shots of the angler holding the fish, pre-compose and set the camera, and only remove the fish from the water for a few seconds at a time to capture the shot. Include some other shots of peripheral events or scenes (e.g. having lunch, wildlife, polaroided fish, insects). If you don’t have macro facilities, submit samples of flies, and we will arrange to have them photographed in-house.

TECHNICAL

If shooting digital, set your camera to the largest image size, and highest quality setting. Images are unlikely to be acceptable if shot on a camera of less than 6 Megapixels. If possible, set your camera to record RAW+JPEG. Even if you can’t convert RAW files yourself, we can, and prefer to do so. You can then supply both. In the absence of a RAW capability, shoot TIFF or the highest JPEG possible.

Avoid setting your camera’s sharpening or saturation levels at ‘high’. Keep to ‘low’ or ‘normal’, and we will do the rest in Photoshop to suit our printing process. Please resist the temptation to crop or enhance images. We will not think less of you if the light is a bit flat or the horizon crooked. We all shoot as well…we know it’s an imperfect science. If you would like to manipulate shots for artistic reasons, feel free to supply an extra copy as JPEG to illustrate the effect. We will assess it for suitability and quality.

Images can be supplied on CD or DVD or share a ‘Dropbox’ type folder.

IMPORTANT

Images must:

  • be unaltered from the original file from the camera.
  • be uncropped.
  • have the original camera-generated filenames/numbers.
  • PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t use captions as the filename, instead supply captions in a separate text document with a reference to the file (image) number. e.g IMG_5574 – a nice rainbow from the tail of the pool.
  • be supplied at 300dpi (without resizing) as 8bit RGB in RAW or TIFF format if possible, otherwise as JPEG.

Limit numbers supplied to between 20 and 100. All must be sharp and well exposed.
A ‘proof sheet’ can be emailed for initial evaluation. This should be approx 20x25cm @200dpi showing 20 images per sheet, saved as ‘Medium JPEG’. Transparencies will only be accepted for historical references or reflective articles.

For any specific queries, email staff photographer/pre-press manager Brad Harris using our Contact page.