Related FAQs: Above-water Photography, Underwater Photography, Digital Photography, Aquatic Videography Related Articles: Aquarium Photography: A Wonderful Offshoot By:  Adam Blundell and Shane Silcox,   Underwater Photography, Reviews on: Norbert Wu's How to Photograph Underwater, Helix Camera (and books),  Making Worthwhile Photographs Above & Below Water, With a de-emphasis on optics, optical science and techniques; and focus on practical aspects, including making and selling imagery Part 3 To: Part1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5,

By Bob Fenner

Online directories are very useful for making itineraries to visit LFS's in distal locales. Note their addresses to plot the route in your GPS, their phone numbers in case you get lost and their hours of operation to make sure their open when you'll be there.



Some valuable notes re visiting businesses and institutions. Go early to the latter, late in the week to the former. When out and about at industry, hobby and scientific do's in the interest, join in on formal and informal tours.



"All is water"... first written/recorded words by humans. You can be "Joe or Josephine Collector/Diver/Photographer". Trips can be coincidentally or focused on these activities. Resort/land based to very dedicated dive boat/live-aboard settings. I use Fishbase.org a good deal to generate have and photo want lists for fishes... Information by Country/Island, Marine (or FW, Br...), resort by Family



In the olde days selling image work was... work. One had to join/sign up, maybe pay in advance to have example photos presented by "agencies"... and the (money) splits were disadvantageous... Often half, and being paid late/r... Nowadays with the Internet, one can easily put up their photos for sale, and if this is a full-time job, possibly buy and use automated software to accept credit cards, PayPal... and have your work automatically download.
Persistence pays. Do add to, update your website, offerings on a regular basis. I mail verticals, portrait format work on CDs/DVDs every 3-4 months to editors I work with, along with weekly re-sending out any returned unpublished work.



You certainly can't be all things to all people, nor should you want to. Do peruse market guides to discern who's who and likely to buy your work. This being stated, DO look for any/all photographic opportunities. For years I didn't shoot marine mammals, people... what a mistake. Nowadays I shoot all, catalog all. An anecdote re Norbert Wu. He is much more aggressive in making submissions, going so far as to send a six