I need a job !

ok.. well thats beside the point but I do have a question.

I know 2 other people in my area that have IMO skills less than my own and they keep getting hired to shoot for magazines and other things and I DO NOT.

Never even approched?

How can I find some work doing this?

Any help...

1 of them does have a online example of their work, 1 does not...

Any suggestions, leads, pointers would be great..

call the magazine's and inquire about their freelance program nearly all publications have one

What are you doing to promote yourself. Do you know what they have done.

One does not necessarily need a website if they actively knock on doors. It was not too long ago that websites didn't exist and the requirement for photography still did. I wouldn't advocate not having one but I suppose that it is possible (albeit much harder) to do without one.

Are you all after the same jobs. In this I mean do you all shoot say motor sports and is this the jobs that you are after. Is there style substantiative differently from yours that it may appeal to the purchaser more.

I don't want to sound negative but your post sounds a tad on the "How come they can go out and play and I can't". You have to be aware of your competition but there is no sense and in fact it is down right counter productive to focus on it too much. Worry about yourself that is the only thing that you can actually control.

If you were thinking about approaching whomever hired these other photographers be very careful how you word this. You don't want to go in and sound jealous. You want to go in and promote yourself. Position it that you would love to be able to do some work with them and what would you have to do to be able to be in that position. Do not sell your soul for the work.

It is entirely possible that this is price point driven. Do you all charge the same and do you know that for a fact. This could be yet another case of someone coming in and lowering the bar even farther. Do you really want to play this game, I for one, do not but that is my personal choice.

Do you have your ducks in a row for when you do get the call. Do you know what you are going to charge, do you have a presentable portfolio. Are you equipped, honestly, to handle the jobs.

Some places will only have so many photographers on a list to call on. If their needs are being met by those, they just don't expand the list. You could be a victim of the numbers game as well.

Your post is short of a few details but I hope that you get my point. It is not about them, it is about you and you are the only one that can change the situation. I've lost a number of jobs where I just wasn't prepared to lower my price, my choice. Alternately I worked damn hard to get work from the advertising agency that I now do most of their work. Pick your battle carefully and make sure they are what you want and worthwhile.

Read SSIM's comment again...he is absolutely correct, and very nice about it.

Been in the same boat. Also been taken advantage of many times.

I qualified with computing as my HND (degree equivalent but more practical and less theoretical). I found I was getting turned down for work I could do without any extra training and that the people getting the work were kids who'd left highschool with really poor highschool qualifications. I never understood that. Then I started selling software online as shareware. That went well for a while then that tailed off as too many others lept onto the market trying to sell themselves as programmers and offering freeware etc. Eventually I started finding cracks for my shareware packages and decided to withdraw them from the market. What's the point - if they're cracked then I don't want to be associated with them in case somebody thinks a cracked (and possibly badly disfunctional program) is representative of what I do. I wrote more software but the cracks came out almost as soon as I wrote the software. What was the point of writing software that might take a few weeks and then finding the next week that somebody had cracked it?

In the end I went abroad and taught English for a few years. Again, I had more skills and higher qualifications as by then I had obtained a TEFL qualification. I was getting just about the same pay as an unualified schoolboy would have received despite being held in high esteem by students etc. That couldn't continue as that kind of job was just marking time rather than working toward the future so I used the opportunity to examine other markets but found that the places where I worked were fairly poorly paid for everything.

I had my best ever pay from photography - from photojournalism as I seemed to end up in the right place at the right time. Eventually the local papers stopped paying because they figured out how to fiddle amateurs by telling them payment was publication.

You might try building some samples & credibility with this: 2006 Photographers Market
2007 should be out soon.