Demotix is a street journalism website and newswire. It enables freelance photojournalists and amateurs to share their stories with a growing community, and license them to the mainstream media.

Demotix launched officially in January 2009, has 5,000 users from over 120 countries, and has already seen its images on the front cover of The Guardian and Spectrum; has licensed its content into the Telegraph, the BBC, the Guardian, the Times, the London Paper, and others all over the world, and has placed its ‘Widget’ (launched in March 09) into The Telegraph, Le Monde, Future News (Lebanon), and the Himalayan Times (Nepal).

The Huffington Post (with whom Demotix has partnered) says: Demotix “may change the way news is reported”, and Nick Kristof, in the New York Times, writes that Demotix “offers aspiring journalists a chance”. In March, Demotix won the Guardian Media Awards 09, the biggest industry prize in the UK.

For more information about Newswear, please visit their site at http://www.newswear.com — there’s information there about their line of special tools for photojournalists. 

If you’d like information about sponsorship in general, just email us at support@novembereleven.org; we’ll be happy to answer any questions or listen to your ideas.

I just registered, but it seems that there is a problem with my location…
I try to put Bethlehem; Occupied Palestinian Territory. 
it is written that it cannot coordinate!

Waypoint maps at Lightstalkers are built with Google Maps, which means we depend on Google to “know” where various place names are. Most of the time this works great; Google can figure out the coordinates for “Paris, France” no problem.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t “recognize” Occupied Palestinian Territory as a mappable place, so Lightstalkers is going to say that it can’t find coordinates for this location. 

We’re working on a fix, but in the meantime you can do one of two things:

1) You can leave it — you won’t have a marker on your map for this particular location, but that’s the only consequence.

2) You can switch to a Google-recognized place name. In this example, that would be “Israel”.

Again, we hope to have a workaround built-in soon. If we can answer any questions in the meantime just send email to support@novembereleven.org.

Photoshelter’s donation to Lightstalkers demonstrates a real interest in reaching out to the photo community, and it helps us in direct ways. Please help us acknowledge their gift, and if you run into these guys, tell them Lightstalkers sent you.

November Eleven uses donations from corporate sponsors to help pay for our bandwidth and server costs; a dynamic, resource-intensive site like Lightstalkers requires a lot of TLC to keep running, not to mention bandwidth and equipment rental.

Thanks again to Photoshelter, and you can see all our current sponsors here:

http://www.lightstalkers.org/sponsorship

Or you can click here to find out more about Photoshelter:http://photoshelter.com

If you have questions about sponsorship, you can email us directly at support@novembereleven.org.

What’s new:
You now get 50 images, free of charge. (We continue to gradually increase your allotment, and plan to continue increasing this limit as our budget allows.)

You can now organize your images into multiple “galleries”—you can use this to sort them into various slideshows and stories. You can add an audio soundtrack to any gallery, in MP3 format, and even set custom timing on your images.

The Flash slideshow’s better than ever, with multiple gallery navigation and fullscreen mode built-in.
If you’ve been updating your Lightstalkers galleries lately, you’ve already got access to all of this—today’s update only affects those who haven’t already upgraded themselves.

All this is possible due to financial support from our members and our sponsors. We’re continuing to add features and storage capacity, and you can help by making a donation today.

Dear Lightstalkers, I would like to talk to [your name] about using their photos in our [magazine, web site, et al]. Can you send me information on rates and availability?

We’re not an agency, of course, and we don’t have the resources to provide this kind of service; our standard response is:

Thanks for your note. Please consult [photographer]’s Lightstalkers profile; you can submit your request using the contact information listed there.

If you’re a freelance photographer, this is a good reason to include lots of contact information in your profile. You can do so here.

Now, if you work from home, you probably don’t want to publish your personal contact information, for privacy and security reasons. There are still ways to get contacted without losing your privacy.

GrandCentral http://www.grandcentral.com/ This service will give you a free US phone number to use as your “work” number. You can have it forward calls to you in real time, or you can simply use it as a voice mail system.

Gmail http://mail.google.com Consider setting up a separate email account for work inquiries (requests@yourdomain.com, for example); you can then make that address public, and include it in your Lightstalkers bio. We recommend Gmail for its spam filter, and, if you’re clever, you can set it up for your domain.

The UPS Store http://www.theupsstore.com/ For a couple hundred dollars a year, you can have a public mailing address; they typically offer 24-hour access to your mailbox and will receive and hold packages for you. It’s not a “PO Box”; you get a professional-looking address. (Tip: Get the smallest size of mailbox they offer. If it fills up with mail, they’ll just keep it in a pile for you behind the counter… nice for when you go out of the country.)

You don’t have to do any of this; you can list your personal contact information in your profile, or none at all. This is just a tip for those of you who want to be as accessible as possible to potential clients.

As you know, November Eleven is a nonprofit organization. We’re pleased to announce now that the IRS has recognized our charitable mission, and given us 501©3 status. Your donations to November Eleven are fully tax-deductible, and we hope that this will help you to continue supporting us in the future. (This also applies to the donations you’ve already sent.) Your donations also allow us to continue offering services like Lightstalkers free of charge, and accessible to all. Thank you for your support, and please continue. The more you give, the more we can accomplish. You can make your tax-deductible contributions 24 hours a day, vianovembereleven.org/support.

You can obtain more information about the November Eleven organization at our Web site; if you have specific questions, or would like to talk to us directly, just send email to support@novembereleven.org.

Ajmal Fund & Operation AzraIn 2007, we’ve been able to expand our scope. In May, we launched the Ajmal Fund, which supports and benefits the families of the Afghan fixers. In July, we launched Operation Azra, to benefit victims of acid burning in Pakistan. Both programs have successfully raised thousands of dollars, thanks to you.

We operate these projects because we’re committed not only to creating better, more independent reportage, but because we recognize a humanitarian responsibility to help those who make it possible—either as fixers or as subjects.

More information about the Ajmal Fund and Operation Azra is available athttp://www.novembereleven.org/projects. If you’re a donor, or would like to become one, please feel free to contact us with your questions.

Lightstalkers continues to grow

Finally, and as always, we continue to operate Lightstalkers.org. Each month, over 70,000 visitors browse among our 19,000 member profiles and 97,000 images, and it continues to expand. Although it’s a lot of work to keep the lights on, we’re still able to launch new features and improvements on an ongoing basis.Again, we’re able to do this because of your financial support. We expect Lightstalkers to continue to grow, and hope that it continues to be relevant to you and your work.