by Editor David Williams

“Try again!” by Kikroune (Christian R.)

We all want to be published and sell our art work. Here are some tips to help you increase your chances of getting published on the greatest online photo site.

Before we get into that, our Head of the Curators team - Peter Svoboda - wrote an interesting article on the reasons of rejection during the screening process. You can read it here.

Here are my tips to help you achieve your goal of getting published. This is a guide to help you, it is not a promise that you will ;)

Originality
1X has amazing photographers to learn from. I say learn from, not copy. Copying someone maybe all good but it doesn't further your creativity or your originality. Also, we must remember the curators have seen a lot of images.

If you see something you like, learn it, copy it and then add your own twist to it before you add it to 1X. Maybe it doesn't make it this time, but you always have the choice to submit it for critique. 1X has an amazing opportunity for the best of us to learn from. This is critique from professional photographers. This is invaluable.

“Commerson's Dolphin” by David Williams

Category
1X has a long list of categories. Make sure you put your image under the right category. This may sound obvious, but photos are put under the wrong category often.

Background
Keep it clean! Black or White background works well with portrait shots (human or animal) It takes away distractions from the subject.

“Flamingos” by Eiji Itoyama

Title
Recently I read an article by Editor Peter Walmsley about using a title for the shot you upload. For those who are interested, click here.

A title has power, it adds mystery, a certain charm. It draws the reader in before even looking at the image. You must have had a story in mind when taking your shot so think what could the title be?

Size and crop
When uploading an image, upload it in high resolution. This doesn’t make a difference in the decision of being published, but if it is published you don’t need to upload the image in high resolution again for selling. Also, in my opinion, low resolution images lose quality which can cause many different things visually.

When cropping an image do we always remember the rule of thirds? Do we think about the aspect ratio? If not, experiment with it, find what suits the image, what pleases your eye?

And finally, in this digital age taking a photo has never been easier. We don’t need to go out and worry about the technical side of it, we can literally just press a button and “fix” it on the computer. There are a lot of opinions on this and I’m not here to argue about them, but my point is there are pictures and there are great pictures.

How do we make the difference?
Personally speaking, to make a great picture it must have feeling, raw emotion. Something that digs into your soul and makes you think about the image. This is art.

“Break the chain” by David Williams

Following these simple guidelines may help you getting your photos published.
Good luck...