Part 5

The jump from the making of photographs to the writing of non-fiction is not a difficult one to make. In his rambles after salable photographs the press-photographer may unearth a subject to which a single photograph does not do justice. Then the making of more photographs and the writing of an article about them is the logical and the progressive and the more remunerative thing to do.

Indeed, subjects which would not sell otherwise may be made very useful to an editor by the writing of an enticing article around them. At once, there is a means of broadening one's market and of disposing of photographs, by themselves, unsalable. An illustrated article naturally calls forth a fatter cheque than would the text or the photographs alone. There is as much a demand for illustrated articles as there is for photographs; so that the photographer with the ability to tell facts simply and clearly has two avenues of revenue.

Many illustrated articles sold to magazines are just groups of photographs with interesting texts written about them. A search through a few magazines reveals a broad variety.

From _Popular Mechanics_:

New Mountain-Road Now Open to Traffic. New Orleans Public Elevator. Artistic Roof-Garden Features City-Factory. Steamer Repaired in Eighteen Days. Where the Earth Collapsed. Flying Anglers Troll for Deep-Sea Fish. A Four-Track Concrete Railroad-Bridge. Waterfalls Near Big City Just Discovered. Concrete Smokestack Difficult to Demolish. Vast Stores of Mineral Paint-Pigments in Salton Sea.

From _Illustrated World_:

What the Circus Does in Winter. Snow on the Overland Trail. City over Coal-Mines Slowly Sinking. Running the Farm by Windmill. Truck Equipped for Sealer of Weights and Measures. Marvelous Development in the Hemp-Industry. Public Camp-Conveniences. Mud-Splashing Guards for Autos. Work for Waterfalls Everywhere. Building the Road to Fit the Car. Heading Off Mountain-Floods. Lawn-Pools and Fountains in Concrete.

From _Photo-Era Magazine_:

Children in the Snow. The Quartz-Meniscus Lens. Introduction of Figures in Landscape-Work. Photographic Greeting Cards. Balance by Shadows in Pictorial Composition. Mounting and Framing Photographs. The Photographer and a Goat-Ranch. In Nature's Studio.

From _Science and Invention_:

Science Measures the Athlete. World's Largest Clock. Making Microphotographs. How Cartoon Movies are Made. A Miniature "Sky." Curing Soldiers' Ills with Electricity. Largest Electric Crane Lifts Complete Tug-Boat. Wintertime Uses for the Electric Fan. Monster Italian Searchlight.

These are articles written around several photographs--not merely illustrated by them. Besides the classes of magazines mentioned there are numerous others--almost any publication that uses illustrations in fact--which are in the market for illustrated articles. Such magazines cater to outers, hunters, sportsmen, business-men, physical culturists, travelers--almost every class of reader.

Having produced and sold articles written around the illustrations, the writer-photographer cannot other than form an idea, now and then, of an article a magazine should want which may be illustrated; but to which the illustrations are supplementary rather than basic. In such cases, the writer will have greater chance of acceptance if he, by means of his camera, makes several photographs to illustrate the text.

Even if an article is acceptable without illustrations, it will bring a bigger cheque nevertheless if it is illustrated. If the lack of illustrations makes the article unavailable, then the photographer has the means of making a cheque grow where none grew before. His camera stands him in good stead. There is no editor but prefers an illustrated article to an unillustrated one--unless his magazine is pictureless from policy.

Then, from having his pictures printed without his name attached, the photographer blossoms into a writer whose work appears under such a head as "_'How Fruit is Raised on the Moon_,' by John Henry Jones, with Illustrations by the Author."

Although the jump from the making of photographs to the writing of non-fiction is easy, you may slip at the first attempt. But hammer away and soon the nail will go in. "For know ye, there isn't a magazine-editor in the business who wouldn't buy an article from his worst enemy if he thought it was good stuff for his magazine."

The photographer must not only "smell out" news; but he must, by the sensitiveness of his "nose" tell just how much the news is capable of being worked up. He will find it comparatively easy to write illustrated special-articles where before he sold just photographs. And such ability stands not far below that of the fictionists.

XV

THE HIGH ROAD

Not much of an exalted vocation, the selling of photographs? Not, perhaps, proclaimed from the housetops as a handsomely paying vocation; but one which may be cultivated into almost anything having to do with inveigling publishers into writing cheques.

When you receive your first cheque your sensation is something like that of the man who has passed through a cyclone and has come through with his "flivver" still in the barn. But when the first contribution is _printed_! The world is yours! You have broken into print! If not into type, at least into printing-ink.

When the excitement wears off there are many branches that beckon. The press-photographer may specialise--he may devote all his efforts to some one branch of the work, as the making of photographs of celebrities, of microphotographs, of almost anything. Witness the amateur photographer who quietly went about photographing the interior of every church in New York, and who then "cashed in" on them to the amount of $4,000. You may even obtain a position--or job--as press-photographer on a big metropolitan daily, with all the world before you and part of it dropping every Saturday afternoon into your pocketbook.

Then, you may be sent overseas--and be paid great oodles of money. Or you may devote all your time to the making of calendar-photographs, or to illustrating stories photographically, as is the fashion now with some magazines, see _True-Story_. There are so many opportunities to grasp that if you look about you and select the specialised branch in which you desire most to work, there is no reason in the world why you should not do it--and, perhaps, earn $10,000 a year at it. "Do one thing better than anyone else and the world will beat a path to your door."

Having broken into printers'-ink, it is comparatively easy to break into type. From selling photographs one may easily advance to the writing and illustrating of non-fiction. And your fame as a non-fictionist, together with the training you have gleaned, may cause you to forward a work of fiction to an editor acquainted with your name--and lo! from the ranks of the "snap-shooters" you have risen to the highest class of scribe--the successful fictionist.

And that, too, is not difficult for him who wills and works. "And work. Spell it in capital letters, WORK," advised Jack London. "Work all the time. Find out about this earth, this universe; this force and matter, and the spirit that glimmers up through force and matter from the maggot to Godhead. And by all this I mean work for a philosophy of life. It does not hurt how wrong your philosophy of life may be, so long as you have one and have it well.... With it you may cleave to greatness and sit among the giants."

Another agrees: "Draw long breaths of confidence, of faith in yourself and your work.... Strike 'despair' out of your dictionary! Get into your chair! Do your stint! Be just as much of a fool as you like. It is your privilege and mine. Then you will have amusing reminiscences. No great writer but can look back and say, 'What a fool I was!'"

Realisation results from "ten per cent. inspiration and ninety per cent. perspiration." A liberal quantity of this mixture will bring one to the High Road. The High Road is smooth. But anyone may travel it who wishes--and works sufficiently hard. Not much, the making and selling of photographs? The start of the trail may be barren and unpromising; but the persevering fellow who follows it persistently will find that it suddenly widens and blossoms and lo, opens full into the High Road.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Making Your Camera Pay, by Frederick C. Davis