A link to a website with four hundred frames, and a request to look at the work. Editors at photography titles are not looking for your best frames. They are looking for a finished project, with a name, an order and a text attached, and a website is the wrong shape for the request.
There is also a second door. Newspapers and general magazines do not commission series from photographers at all; they buy or assign pictures through a picture editor, and that is a different conversation with a different person.
Every page in the list was opened and checked on 5 October 2026.
A series, and a person who buys pictures
A finished project. Titles that publish photography as work take a series: a set of images built in an order, with a title, a short text, and captions. You submit it yourself.
A picture for someone else's page. Here a picture editor, not a features editor, decides. They are buying an image for a page that already exists, to illustrate something already happening. Your project is not what they are looking for.
Two titles below make this distinction visible on their pages. One asks you to pitch an editor by name for original commissioned journalism. Another is a submission route for projects and says it wants the material for its own editions.
What makes a series rather than a portfolio
A finished series often runs to twelve or twenty images. Titles ask to see fewer: Ignant asks for three to ten images sized at 1,800 pixels wide or larger, and the British Journal of Photography for up to ten JPEG files at 2,500 pixels on the longest edge. So you send a chosen subset, in order.
What separates a series from a portfolio is the three things a portfolio does not have:
A name. Something a headline could use. "Night shift, Grimsby" is a name. "Coastal work" is a category.
An order. The sequence is the argument. Decide which image opens, which is the turn, and which is the last thing you want a reader to see, and submit in that order rather than in shooting order.
A text. Between 150 and 200 words, saying what the project is, where it was made and when, and what the difficulty was. Ignant asks for a description of the work. The British Journal of Photography asks for contact details in the body of the email. Nobody asks for 2,000 words about your childhood.
Where the project stands
Say what stage it is at. A finished series, a series from ongoing work, or a first edit from a body of work still being shot. Editors use that to judge what they would be commissioning: completion, or a direction.
If the work is ongoing, say how far along it is and what the next stage produces. "Twenty of an intended sixty" is more useful to an editor than "ongoing".
Permissions, and how to talk about them
Photography puts identifiable people and places in frame, and that creates a question about releases.
Two sources of difficulty recur: people who did not know they would be photographed, and places where photography needs permission, such as interiors, schools, or galleries showing identifiable works. Children make it sharper.
The practical form is short. Have the releases ready before you submit, and expect an editor to ask whether you have them. If you are unsure whether an image needs a release, ask someone qualified. What an editor needs to know is whether you can supply the paperwork for the images you are offering.
Files, in two sizes
Two sizes, for two different purposes.
For selection. Small enough to open quickly on a phone, large enough to judge. Ignant says 1,800 pixels wide or larger. The British Journal of Photography says JPEG, up to 2,500 pixels on the longest edge.
For publication. Full resolution, and only when an editor asks. Some titles below say they need high-resolution files only if they select the work.
Two details that cost nothing and prevent a return. Put your name in the filename: the British Journal of Photography asks for a filename that includes it. And do not put a watermark on the images you are offering, because a file with text across it cannot be cropped, and an editor who cannot crop cannot place it.
A colour profile matters at the publication stage rather than the selection stage. Keep the original files as the camera made them and convert copies, rather than the reverse.
One series, one exclusive
Many titles want first publication of a series. If you offer the same series as an exclusive to five publications at once, nobody can accept, because the point of an exclusive is that there is only one.
Offer it to one, say how long you can hold it, and say what happens on the date you named. If a title does not ask for exclusivity, you can send the same series elsewhere, and saying so plainly in your pitch saves an argument later.
Book, exhibition, prize
Three things reliably make a photography series publishable, and none of them is the work alone.
A book. The publisher has a press office, and the press copy goes out from there. An exhibition. Tell the local papers and the city's free listings three to six weeks ahead: Leeds Inspired takes events at no charge, and city societies such as Bristol take event details and say they pass a touring show on to the other cities on its route. An open call. Calls with a named panel and published results are worth the time. Many charge an entry fee, which pays for the judging and the exhibition; weigh it against the panel, the prize and where the selected work is shown. The titles in the list below take editorial submissions at no charge.
The British Journal of Photography's editorial submissions are open and free. Its awards are a separate route with their own terms, stated on its site.
The picture editor
A different person, a different pitch. What they need is a short selection that fits their pages this month: news, sport, a city, a subject. Not an art project, and not a statement.
What to send: a handful of images on one theme, with a line each saying what it shows and where it was made, and a contact. What not to expect: an assignment. Some will buy, some will not, and the reply you get is often about the frame rather than the photographer.
Three mistakes particular to photographers
Sending the portfolio instead of the series. Four hundred frames ask the editor to do the editing, which is the work you were being asked to do.
A series with no text. The 150 to 200 words are what turn a folder of pictures into something an editor can publish.
The same series offered as an exclusive to everyone. That is not an offer. It is a way of ensuring nobody accepts.
A submission you can adapt
The example is invented. Nothing in it refers to a real photographer, project, publication or gallery.
Subject: Series submission: [series title], [place], [month year]
Dear [name],
[Series title] is a set of twelve photographs made at [place] over four months in [year]. It follows one building from the night it was emptied to the night it was demolished.
The series is finished and available as an exclusive for six weeks from [date]. Ten images are attached at the size you ask for, in the order I intend them to be seen. A text of [number] words and captions are at [one link].
The work has been shown once, at [venue], in [month year].
With thanks, [Name, email]
About ninety words. It names the project, gives the count and the span, offers the exclusivity with a date, confirms the order, points at the text, and offers one prior showing as proof rather than as a boast.
Where to pitch
The list gives what each title says on its own page. Terms change; open the page before you send.
British Journal of Photography
What they take. Projects for its website and printed editions, through its editorial submissions address.
What their page asks for. Contact details in the body of the email, and up to ten attached JPEG files at 2,500 pixels on the longest edge at 72dpi, with your full name in the filename. Says it cannot reply to all submissions.
British Journal of Photography: submit to editorial
BOOOOOOOM
What they take. Work by photographers among artists and illustrators, for its regular features.
What their page asks for. Work submitted through its site, to be considered for a feature on the website and social channels.
Colossal
What they take. Project or exhibition based submissions with supporting imagery or video.
What their page asks for. A brief email describing the work with a few relevant high-resolution images, or a link.
Colossal: submission guidelines
Creativity's UK
What they take. Visual arts and photography criticism, and artist work proposed for coverage.
What their page asks for. The idea and a link to something you have written, or a submission of your work for editorial consideration. Says every pitch gets an answer.
Huck
What they take. Photo essays and visual reporting, commissioned.
What their page asks for. A pitch to the relevant editor with the accompanying text and access information. Says it commissions original journalism, and describes its work as visual storytelling on social injustice.
Ignant
What they take. Projects and series across photography, art, design, architecture and fashion.
What their page asks for. A project description with images, by drive, Dropbox or project link. Three to ten images, sized at 1,800 pixels wide or larger.
It's Nice That
What they take. Projects, including photography, for its features.
What their page asks for. An email with a short biography, information about the project, and links to images rather than attachments. Says please do not attach large files, and that submissions are looked at within the next two weeks.
Visionary Art
What they take. Exhibition reviews, studio visits and artist features, and exhibition news from outside London.
What their page asks for. Six to eight images with title, year, medium and dimensions, a short statement in your own words, and where the work can be seen. Says it answers within about three weeks.
Two counts in that list are worth carrying into your own file management. Ignant asks for three to ten images and the British Journal of Photography for up to ten, so a twelve-image series needs a chosen subset rather than the whole folder. One title asks for six to eight, which is a different shape again.
Questions photographers ask
How many images should a series have? Follow the page. Two titles in the list ask for up to ten, and one asks for six to eight. Send the count they ask for, in the order you intend, rather than the whole project with a note saying to pick any ten.
Do I need releases from the people in my pictures? Have them ready before you submit, and expect to be asked. If the answer to a specific image is unclear, ask someone qualified rather than deciding it yourself; what an editor needs to know is whether you can supply the paperwork for the images you are offering.
Can I submit a project that has been on my own website? Usually, yes. Say plainly where the images have been published, because an editor who discovers it later will not forget, and a first showing in a small gallery is information rather than a disqualification.
How do I keep track of where a series has been offered? One row per approach: title, date sent, the response time the page states, the result, and whether the series was offered as an exclusive and until when. That last column is the one that prevents offering the same work as a first to five people in the same fortnight.
Does your publication take pitches, or has a page in this list changed? Tell the Journal and the list will be corrected.
