Contact Details
Editor Jim Harnwell should be contacted prior to submission to discuss your possible story idea. Jim can be contacted at or by phoning (02) 4447 8801. Postal address: Fishing World GPO Box 606 Sydney NSW 2001

Any further questions relating to photography equipment, techniques or submission should be directed to Scott Thomas at or by phoning (02) 9213 8278.

Photography guidelines
Good quality and eye catching photographs are essential to accompany a well-written article. The following guidelines offer advice and instructions for submitting your photographs to Fishing World.

Equipment
Film vs digital
This is often the first question asked by new and established contributors alike. Digital is undoubtedly the way of the future. For a contributor, it offers cost effective photography (after the initial purchase) and also the ability to view photos on the water. There are many more advantages for the user that are too numerous to list. Ideally, cameras should be digital SLR, sometimes called DSLR. The ability to change lenses and use an external flash offers a better photo than the compact digital and most importantly the quality is far superior. Any digital SLR over 8 megapixels set on the highest resolution should be adequate. When choosing lenses, wide angles are the most versatile, preferably in a zoom (for example 17-85mm or similar). If you can afford it, a second longer focal length lens would also be useful (for example 70-200). Lens quality is probably just as important as the number of megapixels - so buy the very best you can afford.

If you don't have a digital SLR, transparency (slide) film is still quite acceptable and common. We still accept transparencies for their high quality - transparencies offer a picture quality equal to that of a high-resolution digital image.

Techniques
This section explains some basic techniques for capturing better fishing images.

Composition
How to compose the image is just as important as the quality of the image. Try photographing both horizontal and vertical (landscape and portrait) and it's also worth taking close-ups of fish and action shots of the fish and angler. The possibilities are endless, try more than just the cliched fish and angler photo. Uncluttered backgrounds are important and try to keep the horizon level.

Some photos are best shot "zoomed in" so the subject fills the frame. Other photos are best shot with some space around the subject to leave room for text. Try both and experiment.

Ideally anglers should be smiling and will have sunglasses removed. Try both smiling at the camera and looking at the fish admirably.

Fish are best photographed alive. Gutted fish or fish with too much blood detracts from the photo.

Action shots and photos of fish being released are often better than staged photos. Another consideration is to wear brightly coloured clothing, particularly red or yellow.

Achieving great fishing photos often requires the photographer to take a backseat to the fishing. It is difficult to fish and take photos at the same time. It may be difficult, but during a hot bite, it's sometimes best to let your mates' fish while you stay on the camera.

Light
Flash is important. Although natural light looks best, fill flash during the day to hide shadows and flash in the morning/evening to lighten the photo is essential. Another way to help remove shadows on the subject's face is to remove any caps or hats and shoot from a lowered position looking up.

Mornings and afternoons are best for fishing photography, coincidentally it's also the best times for fishing. This is when the sun, which is lower in the sky, gives off a soft and diffused light. Middle of the day photos are often too bright and washed out. They also contain unwanted harsh shadows. Of course, if you catch a prized fish at midday, photograph it as usual and hope for the best - modern day cameras can cope with harsh light surprisingly well.

Submitting photos
Once you're ready to send us an article with photos, how should you submit them? Because good quality digital photos are high resolution, emailing them isn't an option. You could email some low resolution images first for us to look at but the final photos for publishing should be sent on a disk. Save the photos as a jpeg or Tiff only - RAW photos should be converted to Tiff before submitting.

Transparencies should be labelled individually and mailed in a padded bag for extra protection.

Send a minimum of 20 different images and ensure to include a caption sheet for each corresponding photo.