Any photojournalist who describes himself as a, "scurrilous hack," is very welcome to contribute to the "Your Story" section. And so, for the first time in 'print,' here's John Bantin's story.
If you don't know who John is (really? You've never heard of him?) he's the technical editor of DIVER magazine.
John is feared among diving equipment manufacturers for his sometimes scathing, and nearly always correct reviews of dive gear. He's also written some quite insightful articles on destinations and diving practices.
From John's story I believe the lesson on how to get published is quite simple:
Find interesting stuff that's going on and write about it.
Oh yes - there's one more thing. John mentions how he has never worked so hard since he got into this business. He's not joking you know. The life of a photojournalist isn't just one big set of holidays, you have a job to do and the pressure is on. Next month's magazine won't wait - you have pages in it that need filling. And if you can't, or you try and fill them with rubbish, well, you can guess the rest.
Keep Writing...
Brendan
The Full Nine Yards
Back in the late 'eighties I owned a house in Mallorca. I wanted to go diving but there was no dive centre nearby so I bought a RIB boat, compressor, tanks and so. Many friends from England would join me for diving trips. Then I hit on the idea of the diving-timeshare. I bought a second home, a second boat, compressor and four sets of kit and intended to time-share it to members of the British Sub-Aqua Club. (That idea was a failure because I soon realised that few BSAC members could be trusted to manage the operation.)
I needed publicity for this and persuaded a friend who also worked in the Media to write an article about me in Mallorca which we got published in the official organ of the BSAC - then Diver Magazine. Shortly after that I was on a work trip in Indonesia and took some time off to go diving. During one dive my upstream regulator completely failed and I had to swim out of a wreck and make a free-ascent from more than 30m deep. I wrote about the experience and Diver magazine published it. After that, every time I went on a diving trip I managed to write an article and get it published. It seems they liked my style! Maybe it was because I was a professional in the Advertising business and I brought a professional way of working to what was then a very amateur magazine.
I told the publisher Bernard Eaton not to bother to pay me for articles but send the money to the BSAC Lifeboat Fund. I later got a letter from Derek Ellerby, the then Chairman of the BSAC, telling me that the BSAC had just bought a new inshore life-boat and I was the major benefactor! It seems I was getting rather a lot of items published.
One thing led to another. Eventually I gave up work to retire (at the age of 42). At this point Diver Magazine offered me a contract and since then I have never worked so hard in my life.
JB
(LtoR) Mike Valentine Mike Wong, John Bantin, Alex Double, Lesley & Bob Brading, Lawson Wood on Lady Jenny V in about 1988.
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