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FROM THE EDITOR: Smile for the Birdy
by Linda Mojer

I draw the line at taking photographs. I’m just not particularly good at it, so — even though I’ll snap one for a tourist every now and then — it’s only because I don’t expect to get called on it when their foreheads are missing later on. Photography is one of those things that falls under my bumper sticker guideline, of “If at first you don’t succeed, quickly deny that you were ever trying ...” I’ve learned not to try anymore. 

Just the same, I do know what I like, and I can line up a group shot like a drill sergeant (so that whoever does take the picture gets all the faces). I know what I want when it comes time to match images with words, and when photos come in, I’m as picky as I can be with what we have to work with. 

So now that practically everyone (except me) has a digital camera, here’s what I’ve learned (“if at first you don’t succeed ...”). It’s convenient. It’s simple! Over the past 18 months or so, the percentage of digital images submitted to, and used in, RACQUETBALL has risen to about half. This is good in pre-press, since scanning time goes way down. This is bad in production, since selection time goes way up (I can speed-flip through a hundred prints in about a minute; it takes me over an hour to pull up the same number of images from a CD). Then there’s the ease and immediacy of being to accept emailed images on deadline. But sometimes resolution is high and the print quality is dependable; sometimes what looks good on screen doesn’t “hold up” on paper. Most of the time, I can’t know until it’s too late ...

To my mind, there are two issues: time and quality (volume doesn’t seem to be a problem). If you’re a digital shutterbug, here’s how you can address them, plus go one step further and — in so doing — greatly increase my fondness for you, and your photos. 

Please do a preliminary “edit” of your album. On average, a feature story may carry up to 3-4 photos per finished page. If you are sending photos from a major event, take a hard look at what you have, and send in no more than ten (10) of your very best images. If you are sending in a 200-word story about a local event, give us your clearest, most-compelling 3-4 shots to choose from. Make sure that you’ve captioned everything with the names of everyone pictured, and don’t forget the photographer. And your stock will rise dramatically if you rename your shots from the “DSC0002389” filenames assigned by your camera, to a more relevant clue about the photo subject (mysonontheawardpodium1.jpg, for instance).

Finally, refer to the online guidelines for submitting photographs at www.racqmag.com > “guidelines”. I’ll be doing some research to learn a bit more about the subject myself (without actually shooting any digital photos myself, mind you) so that, by the time you read this, there will be some expanded technical tips for digital imaging to help you get your stories and photos published. Good luck!