Submission guidelines for Galaxy
Picture Library
We welcome contacts from new suppliers, whether astrophotographers or
astro
artists. We also have some requirements for general science-oriented
photos,
and of clouds and other sky phenomena.
General requirements
We already have an extensive collection of astronomical photos, so if
your
photos are similar to those we already hold there is little requirement
for us to include yours unless of course they are better! We already
have
good shots of the most popular objects, such as the Orion Nebula, but
if
you feel that yours are likely to offer an improvement we would be
pleased
to see them. All images should be sharp, with no unpleasant background
cast, and in as high resolution as possible. CCD images are perfectly
acceptable
if the object can only successfully be photographed by that means, but
publishers always want high-resolution files (at least 2000 pixels
across
and often more). Digital camera photos of daytime scenes should also be
of at least 3 megapixel size, and ideally larger.
There are other objects that are not so well represented.
Colour images
are needed if at all possible. A short list follows:
-
Good colour photos of the Moon in large format, as well as details of
particular
areas
- Pictorial shots of the stars with horizons in different parts
of the world,
including star trails with foregrounds from interesting locations
- The less popular deep-sky objects, such as globular clusters
and many fainter
galaxies, particularly in higher resolutions. But the demand for
pictures
of individual objects is not great.
- Double stars
- The brighter asteroids, possibly showing their movement
against the stars
- Meteors, especially from the lesser showers (other than the
Perseids and
Leonids)
- Observatories and astronomers, named or unnamed. Photos of
amateur telescopes
and observatories must have some real pictorial quality and should not
have unattractive backgrounds (as most of them do!). In some cases
model
release forms may be needed, so you should know the individuals
featured
if possible.
- Groups of astronomers, star parties and so on
- Aurorae from high northern or southern latitudes
(particularly southern!)
- Sequence of photos of the midnight sun
How to send pictures
Please send an e-mail first, ideally accompanied by a few
thumbnails
of your images. Please don’t send huge files at this stage
– images up
to 500 pixels wide, as jpegs of medium compression, are perfectly good
enough to convey an impression of the sort of images you have.
If we are interested, we'll ask to see the high-res
files. Scan sizes of at least 2000 pixels on the longest side are needed, and ideally 5000.
Publishers
require images of at least 300 dots (or pixels) per inch of
reproduction
size (don’t argue, they just do) so for reproductions larger
than postcard
size we need scans as big as possible. But please don’t
e-mail us multi-megabyte
scans without asking first!
There is no minimum submission – if you
have just one cracking good
photo we are happy to accept it, but if the subject matter is
peripheral
to our main collection it is less likely that we will be interested
– ie
we are less interested in sunsets no matter how gorgeous than we are in
a nice aurora.
The deal
We offer the usual picture library deal – a 50-50 split of
the repro fees,
but not including any search and service fees that we may charge.
We do not charge you for anything placed in the library. Payment is usually made every six months. We pay
in UK pounds, but in the case of overseas photographers we try to pay
you
in the most cost-effective way. We deduct the costs of converting your
payment into International Money Orders, but for small payments we
prefer
to use Paypal.com or even sending goods to the value of your payment
ordered
via Amazon.com.
Copyright and exclusivity
Copyright remains with the photographer. We only license the right to
reproduce
your photos. You may make private sales of your photos if you wish. We
would prefer that you do not place the same images with other UK
picture
agencies.
if you want more information.