So how do you start a blog?

Perhaps we should start out by telling you a bit about who we are and what we do, so here goes. F2 Freelance Photographer is published by EC1 Publishing Ltd. We're a London UK based company and currently publish two photography magazines: The Royal Photographic Society Journal, under contract on behalf of the RPS, and our own title F2 Freelance Photographer.

The two directors of EC1, which for the curious was named after our London postal code, are David Land, david@ec1publishing.com who edits our magazines, and Simon James, simon@ec1publishing.com our publisher. Sue Harper, sue@ec1publishing.com is our deputy editor and if you're interested in advertising in our titles you should speak to Sulann Staniford-Grainger, sulann@ec1publishing.com. Both David and Simon are photography graduates, David from Westminster and Simon from Derby, and both have worked as London based freelance photographers.

We took on F2 Freelance, www.f2freelancephotographer.com in October 2006, with the intention of producing a magazine that concentrates solely and down the line on the business side of being a working self-employed photographer. So you won't find any features on how to take photographs in F2 Freelance, or for that matter anything on aesthetics. Essentially nobody in F2 Freelance is going to waste your time telling you it works better with a bit of red in it!

F2 Freelance Photographer is built around three major profiles and includes a big section called The Business. The F2 Profile flagship feature always interviews a leading freelance, concentrating upon how he or she got to where they are today, the successes and pitfalls of the journey and current perspectives on the business today. Starting Out is for students and those recently out of college. We're very conscious of the amount of debt people build up getting their degree and the manner in which the world changes the day you leave. Starting Out never features anybody who is more than two years out of college and concentrates on the ways in which people take their first steps into the industry. Our other major profile is Turning Pro which concentrates on people moving into the industry at a mid career point as many people seem to do.

F2 Freelance covers all aspects of the freelance industry, including editorial, fashion, and advertising as well as the growing and potentially lucrative wedding and social arena. Licence to Sell is our regular feature on picture libraries; we cover a different library each issue, discussing who they are and what sort of imagery they are looking for.

Our major regular feature The Picture Editors each issue features a picture editor looking for freelance contributions and commissioning work. Recent picture editors feature include some of the more difficult to get to see, such as Monica Allende at the Sunday Times Magazine, Roger Tooth of The Guardian, and Marian Patterson of New Musical Express. As well as top end consumer magazines we also cover some of the less well known trade titles on which some of the biggest names in the industry cut their teeth such as Nursing Times and Print Week. Other features have recently included our Moving To London Graduate Guide, major features on web sites, Pitching for Editorial Work and a look at who buys what sort of imagery.

Subscriptions to F2 Freelance Photographer magazine are available direct from our web site www.f2freelancephotographer.com We also have a back issues page on the site where you will find listings of many of the features covered and be able to buy those issues via PayPal. If for example you have an idea for a published book you may want to take a look at the feature on getting a book published in the Dec/Jan 2009 issue.

So that's a bit about us, who we are and what we do. The blog of course is for you. Whether you're a photographer working towards making the big jump into professional photography, a student or assistant, a new graduate starting out, or a time served freelance from one of the many and diverse arenas within the industry we'd like to hear from you: about your own approaches to the business, your feelings about new trends and directions within the industry, any comments you have on the magazine, features within it or features you'd like to see in the future, so over to you!

Simon