If you want your product photo to be published you have to find out a few things, like whether they will take the picture, or if you will. One way to get a photo published is to shoot it yourself. Smaller publications will frequently depend on you for photographs, but there may be occasions when even a sophisticated large daily with a big staff will use your publicity shot. "In some cases, publicity photos are useful because there's no way we can get a picture quickly ourselves," says one newspaper's photo editor. But, he goes on to say, "I think the rules for pictures we accept from publicists should be the same as the rules we impose on our own staff photographers." In other words, your publicity picture has to be as good as the shots taken by the publication's regular photographers.

To learn more about publicity photos, and how you can get your publicity photos published whether you shoot the photo, they shoot the photo, or you loan them a product and someone else shoots the photo, read David R. Yale's "How To Get Publicity Photos In Newspapers, Magazines, And On TV"