Welcome to Mother Jones' photoblog. The blog is maintained and edited by Mark Murmann.

How Do I Submit a Photo?

1. If you have a Flickr account, the best way to submit photos is via the Mother Jones group on Flickr. Simply post your images to the group and we will put our favorites up on the Photo Blog. Easy. These submissions get first priority.

2. If you host your photos somewhere besides Flickr, or want to send photos directly to us, use the form on this page to contact us.

All photos should be 500px at their longest side, saved in JPEG format. Anything smaller, or sent in any other format will not be posted to the Photo Blog. Any photos that are too large are subject to the mood of the Photo Blog administrator and may or may not be posted. Please try to properly size your submissions.

Include your name, a link to your website (if you have one), title of your photo and all relevant caption information. If you submit photos via Flickr, include the caption information in the description field for the photo. Otherwise, please include it in your form submission. Photos without any caption information will not be posted.

Please be selective in editing. Do not send a number of photos of the same scene, unless it is part of a photo story/essay.

Yes, we do accept submissions for photo essays for the Photo Blog and the Mother Jones website. When submitting photo essays, please specify whether we have permission to run the photos on the website, or whether you’re only submitting the essay for publication in the magazine. Include a story synopsis as well as caption information. If we intend on running your photo essay on the website, we will be in touch prior to posting it. Please note: we do not pay for photos we run on the Photo Blog – whether a single image or essay.

Do not submit photos that you did not take. Should be obvious, but you’d be surprised.

Please do not email to ask if we received your submission or when it will be posted. At this point, most submissions will run within a week or two. Timely photos of breaking events will run sooner than photos with a longer shelf-life.

What kind of photos are we looking for?

In general we’re looking for photos that reflect the tone and content of the magazine and website. Generically, photos that are social/political in nature, though not necessarily all serious and heavy. We know how to have a good time, right? Like the explosives robot handing out beers at the US Embassy in Kabul. See? Kinda political, but still fun. Though we know kittens and other small, fuzzy, cute animals drive traffic like (almost) nothing else, CuteOverload and StuffOnMyCat have those markets corned.

Event photos, such as those from elections (from interesting city-level races up to Presidential races), protests and conventions are good. But more, we’d love photos that go a little deeper, photos that either capture the mood of the times. We love “Americana” type photos (think Robert Frank, or more recently, Danny Wilcox Frazier), great portraits are always welcome, offbeat photos are great. If you’re serving overseas, we’d love to see pictures of life on the base. Great photos that a tell a story in a single image are hard to come by and thus appreciated. Environment, politics, social issues, labor concerns…if you’re really stumped, look through what we’ve posted in the past. Or just send in your photo. We love to be surprised. If it fits, we’ll post it.