Collaborate With Us
Work with A Bag of Stories. We welcome documentary photographers, writers, researchers, cultural organizations, and partners interested in meaningful storytelling.
Get in touch ➜Collaborate With Us
Good stories rarely begin with a publishing agreement. More often, they begin with a conversation, a shared question, or the discovery that two people, working in different places, are trying to understand something similar.
A Bag of Stories is an independent magazine and cultural platform developed by AFAR and Ayzoh!, bringing together documentary photography, writing, research, and stories about the relationships between people, places, and the world we share.
We believe that meaningful editorial work grows through encounters, collaboration, and the exchange of knowledge. Some of our stories emerge from years of working alongside communities; others begin with a photograph, an unexpected introduction, or a proposal from someone whose work we have yet to discover. We welcome both.
What we're looking for
We are interested in working with photographers, writers, journalists, researchers, artists, cultural organizations, and independent projects whose work brings a thoughtful and informed perspective to contemporary life.
Our interests are broad, but they share a common direction: understanding how people live, create, remember, move, work, and shape their own futures.
Among the subjects we explore are documentary photography, travel and cultural encounters, craftsmanship and material knowledge, architecture and ways of living, ecology, social change, collective memory, and the relationship between local communities and wider transformations.
We are particularly interested in stories that emerge from sustained observation, firsthand experience, and meaningful relationships with the people involved.
We don't necessarily look for extraordinary events or distant places. Sometimes, an ordinary situation, carefully observed, can reveal more about the world than an ambitious journey.
Editorial contributions
We welcome proposals for photographic essays, longform journalism, field notes, interviews, visual research, and other forms of nonfiction storytelling.
You don't need to submit a finished article. A well-developed idea, supported by a clear understanding of its subject, may be a better starting point.
What matters to us is not only what a story is about, but why it deserves to be told, whose perspectives it includes, and what the author can contribute beyond what is already known.
We value strong photography and good writing, but neither should come at the expense of accuracy, context, or respect for the people represented.
We are not interested in collecting images of unfamiliar places simply because they appear beautiful, dramatic, or exotic. We want to understand what happens there, and why it matters.
Cultural partnerships
A Bag of Stories is also a place where different forms of knowledge and experience can meet.
We welcome conversations with museums, cultural institutions, universities, independent publishers, community organizations, socially responsible businesses, and other initiatives whose work intersects with our editorial interests.
A collaboration might take the form of a jointly developed story, a photographic project, an exhibition, a publication, a public conversation, or a longer-term exchange of ideas and resources.
We are especially interested in partnerships that create something neither organization could develop in quite the same way alone.
Commercial support and cultural independence are not mutually exclusive. A Bag of Stories itself exists through a collaboration between AFAR, an Ethiopian-made accessories brand, and Ayzoh!, an Italian organization working across documentary photography, cultural research, and community-based projects.
What matters is that every partnership respects the integrity of the work and the independence of our editorial decisions.
Our editorial principles
We approach photography and storytelling as responsibilities, not simply as forms of expression.
The people appearing in our stories are not illustrations of an argument, anonymous representatives of a culture, or passive subjects of someone else's curiosity. They have their own knowledge, histories, choices, and perspectives.
We believe in careful research, transparent attribution, responsible representation, and the importance of context. We also believe that editorial relationships should be based on dialogue rather than extraction.
We welcome different perspectives, including those that challenge our own assumptions, provided they are grounded in evidence and respect for the people concerned.
Our editorial independence is not negotiable. Collaborations do not guarantee publication, favorable coverage, or control over the final story.
What isn't the right fit
Not every project related to travel, photography, design, or culture is necessarily right for A Bag of Stories.
We generally do not consider generic destination promotions, reciprocal link exchanges, undisclosed advertising, promotional articles presented as independent journalism, or photographic portfolios without sufficient context.
We are not interested in stories that rely on stereotypes, sensationalism, or the representation of vulnerable communities as objects of pity.
This doesn't mean we are closed to commercial organizations or unconventional proposals. It simply means that every collaboration must offer genuine editorial or cultural value to our readers.
How to propose a collaboration
If you have a story, a photographic project, or a partnership idea that might belong here, we'd be interested in hearing about it.
Please introduce yourself, tell us what you are working on, and explain why you believe it could be relevant to A Bag of Stories.
For editorial submissions, a short project description, a selection of images or writing samples, and some background on your relationship with the subject are usually enough for an initial conversation.
For cultural partnerships, tell us what you have in mind, what your organization does, and what you hope we might develop together.
Please also let us know whether your proposal involves any specific financial, licensing, or publication expectations.
We review proposals according to their editorial relevance and our available capacity. While we cannot guarantee publication or a response to every submission, we give serious consideration to work that genuinely connects with our interests.
Get in touch: staff@abagofstories.com
Some stories begin far from home. Others begin with someone writing to say: there's something here you might want to see.
We're listening.