There's quite a bit I need to know so I'm going to list a few questions, if you can either answer as much as you can or point me in the direction of a few answers. I need this info fairly urgently so it's very much appreciated.

Here goes,

1: What processes and materials are involved? How much processing and printing would a fashion photographer do?

2: What sorts of film are used? Medium format? 35mm? Transparency? Negative? Are people using digital much for Magazines yet?

3: For a typical fashion / magazine photographer what equipment do they own, do they hire anything? Is it necessary to own a studio space or can you simply just have an office and be flexible where you shoot?

4: How does one get clients? What are the aquisition methods for clients? For example, does one just go to a magazine and ask for work or do magazines often select a photographer? Do the photographers do much advertising or is the only advertising you need just the work you've done already?

5. Lastly, could anyone name a few of the famous studios I could research into. And also some not so big ones that might be willing to answer some questions more directly?

Very little most would be done by a professional photo-printer, though some photographers do their own mainly B&W though.

2. Most magazines like medium formal transparency but will take sharp 35mm, very few will take negs, and most at the moment won't take digital but things are changing very quickly on the digital front.

3. This is a difficult question probably 90% of the photographers will use either a Hasselblad, Mamiya 6x7. or Bronica 6x6 645s are not very popular. most photographers either have their own studio or share with other photographers, and some of the magazines have studios. You can't really get by without a studio in the UK as the weather is not pridictable.

Fashion studios would also have around 3000 to 10,000 w/s of studio flash, a system like this will cost in the region or Ј3,000 to Ј10,000 or maybe more if you include special lights, and big soft boxes. The studio would also have an extensive range of paper backdrops, and maybe even some sort of workshop/store room for canvas flats. whilst it is posable to work in smaller spaces the smallest studio IMHO would be around 11x17 foot with a 9 foot ceiling, but would be very tight.

4.Work will never come to you, no matter how good a photographer you are, the only way to get work is to show your portfolio to anyone who will look at it, and maybe you will get a job eventually, once you have done a few paying jobs it will get a little easier, have a easy name to remember and make sure it's in front of any person who might wan't a photographer, the people who take photographers on for commissions tend to be very busy and won't search through yellow pager for long looking for a photographer.