This week Louise Holden looks at photography.

Many novice magazine teams make the fatal mistake of leaving images to chance. They put so much thought into the writing that they forget how pictures can help tell the story. That's why it's so important to nominate an enthusiastic picture editor to oversee all the images in your magazine.

The winner of the 2004 SchoolMag competition, Impact, illustrated every article with a photograph of the author doing something related to the theme

of the piece. The result was impressive: it gave the publication a consistent visual personality and brought interest to every page before you had read a word.

Last year's winning magazine used very few photographs, but the team stuck to a stark black-and-white

design, leaving plenty of white space, that made their publication look slick, professional and modern. In both cases, consistency was the key.

Some websites offer free images (consider www.freeimages.co.uk or www.freephotosbank.com). If you have a reasonable budget, you could also subscribe to www.absolutvision.com or a similar website.

If you're taking your own photographs, ensure that the lines of communication between the photographer, journalist and picture editor are open.

If you have a talented photographer on your team, use him or her to best effect. Send your snapper out to find great photos, with or without articles. Pictures can often make stories in their own right, as many an Irish Times front page has proved. Here are some tips for getting the perfect image from a leader in the field: Peter Thursfield, picture editor of The Irish Times.

Before taking a photograph to accompany a story, get to know the issues and personalities involved, so you can concentrate on the story's important visual elements.

Avoid the common mistakes of using the wrong focus point in an image, leaving too much space around the subject - in other words, not getting close enough to your subject - and not using a fast enough shutter speed, so the image is slightly blurred.

Avoid static poses. Make your subject feel at ease and try to encourage them to talk, laugh or otherwise interact as you take photographs. This should liven up a portrait session and help to  bring out the personality of the  subject.

If you can't seem to get an appropriate photograph to accompany a piece, find out more about the story. There are usually angles within each story that offer potential for interesting images. You may be able to use a photograph of a celebrity or other eye-catching image from an online archive.

Next week: design. For more tips, visit www.irishtimesschoolmag.ie. If you would like to see an area of magazine production covered in this column, e-mail lholden@irish-times.ie