How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 29

CHAPTER XI

PHOTOGRAPHS AND OTHER ILl.u.s.tRATIONS

VALUE OF ILl.u.s.tRATIONS. The perfecting of photo-engraving processes for making ill.u.s.trations has been one of the most important factors in the development of popular magazines and of magazine sections of newspapers, for good pictures have contributed largely to their success. With the advent of the half-tone process a generation ago, and with the more recent application of the rotogravure process to periodical publications, comparatively cheap and rapid methods of ill.u.s.tration were provided. Newspapers and magazines have made extensive use of both these processes.

The chief value of ill.u.s.trations for special articles lies in the fact that they present graphically what would require hundreds of words to describe. Ideas expressed in pictures can be grasped much more readily than ideas expressed in words. As an aid to rapid reading ill.u.s.trations are unexcelled. In fact, so effective are pictures as a means of conveying facts that whole sections of magazines and Sunday newspapers are given over to them exclusively.

Ill.u.s.trations const.i.tute a particularly valuable adjunct to special articles. Good reproductions of photographs printed in connection with the articles a.s.sist readers to visualize and to understand what a writer is undertaking to explain. So fully do editors realize the great attractiveness of ill.u.s.trations, that they will buy articles accompanied by satisfactory photographs more readily than they will those without ill.u.s.trations. Excellent photographs will sometimes sell mediocre articles, and meritorious articles may even be rejected because they lack good ill.u.s.trations. In preparing his special feature stories, a writer will do well to consider carefully the number and character of the ill.u.s.trations necessary to give his work the strongest possible appeal.

SECURING PHOTOGRAPHS. Inexperienced writers are often at a loss to know how to secure good photographs. Professional photographers will, as a rule, produce the best results, but amateur writers often hesitate to incur the expense involved, especially when they feel uncertain about selling their articles. If prints can be obtained from negatives that photographers have taken for other purposes, the cost is so small that a writer can afford to risk the expenditure. Money spent for good photographs is usually money well spent.

Every writer of special articles should become adept in the use of a camera. With a little study and practice, any one can take photographs that will reproduce well for ill.u.s.trations. One advantage to a writer of operating his own camera is that he can take pictures on the spur of the moment when he happens to see just what he needs. Unconventional pictures caught at the right instant often make the best ill.u.s.trations.

The charges for developing films and for making prints and enlargements are now so reasonable that a writer need not master these technicalities in order to use a camera of his own. If he has time and interest, however, he may secure the desired results more nearly by developing and printing his own pictures.

Satisfactory pictures can be obtained with almost any camera, but one with a high-grade lens and shutter is the best for all kinds of work. A pocket camera so equipped is very convenient. If a writer can afford to make a somewhat larger initial investment, he will do well to buy a camera of the so-called "reflex" type. Despite its greater weight and bulk, as compared with pocket cameras, it has the advantage of showing the picture full size, right side up, on the top of the camera, until the very moment that the b.u.t.ton is pressed. These reflex cameras are equipped with the fastest types of lens and shutter, and thus are particularly well adapted to poorly lighted and rapidly moving objects.

A tripod should be used whenever possible. A hastily taken snap shot often proves unsatisfactory, whereas, if the camera had rested on a tripod, and if a slightly longer exposure had been given, a good negative would doubtless have resulted.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PHOTOGRAPHS. All photographs intended for reproduction by the half-tone or the rotogravure process should conform to certain requirements.

First: The standard size of photographic prints to be used for ill.u.s.trations is 5 x 7 inches, but two smaller sizes, 4 x 5 and 3 x 5, as well as larger sizes such as 6 x 8 and 8 x 10, are also acceptable. Professional photographers generally make their negatives for ill.u.s.trations in the sizes, 5 x 7, 6 x 8, and 8 x 10. If a writer uses a pocket camera taking pictures smaller than post-card size (3 x 5), he must have his negatives enlarged to one of the above standard sizes.

Second: Photographic prints for ill.u.s.trations should have a glossy surface; that is, they should be what is known as "gloss prints." Prints on rough paper seldom reproduce satisfactorily; they usually result in "muddy" ill.u.s.trations. Prints may be mounted or unmounted; unmounted ones cost less and require less postage, but are more easily broken in handling.

Third: Objects in the photograph should be clear and well defined; this requires a sharp negative. For newspaper ill.u.s.trations it is desirable to have prints with a stronger contrast between the dark and the light parts of the picture than is necessary for the finer half-tones and rotogravures used in magazines.

Fourth: Photographs must have life and action. Pictures of inanimate objects in which neither persons nor animals appear, seem "dead" and unattractive to the average reader. It is necessary, therefore, to have at least one person in every photograph. Informal, unconventional pictures in which the subjects seem to have been "caught" unawares, are far better than those that appear to have been posed. Good snap-shots of persons in characteristic surroundings are always preferable to cabinet photographs. "Action pictures" are what all editors and all readers want.

Fifth: Pictures must "tell the story"; that is, they should ill.u.s.trate the phase of the subject that they are designed to make clear. Unless a photograph has ill.u.s.trative value it fails to accomplish the purpose for which it is intended.

CAPTIONS FOR ILl.u.s.tRATIONS. On the back of a photograph intended for reproduction the author should write or type a brief explanation of what it represents. If he is skillful in phrasing this explanation, or "caption," as it is called, the editor will probably use all or part of it just as it stands. If his caption is unsatisfactory, the editor will have to write one based on the writer's explanation. A clever caption adds much to the attractiveness of an ill.u.s.tration.

A caption should not be a mere label, but, like a photograph, should have life and action. It either should contain a verb of action or should imply one. In this and other respects, it is not unlike the newspaper headline. Instead, for example, of the label t.i.tle, "A Large Gold Dredge in Alaska," a photograph was given the caption, "Digs Out a Fortune Daily." A picture of a young woman feeding chickens in a backyard poultry run that accompanied an article ent.i.tled "Did You Ever Think of a Meat Garden?" was given the caption "Fresh Eggs and Chicken Dinners Reward Her Labor." To ill.u.s.trate an article on the danger of the pet cat as a carrier of disease germs, a photograph of a child playing with a cat was used with the caption, "How Epidemics Start." A portrait of a housewife who uses a number of labor-saving devices in her home bore the legend, "She is Reducing Housekeeping to a Science." "A Smoking Chimney is a Bad Sign" was the caption under a photograph of a chimney pouring out smoke, which was used to ill.u.s.trate an article on how to save coal.

Longer captions describing in detail the subject ill.u.s.trated by the photograph, are not uncommon; in fact, as more and more pictures are being used, there is a growing tendency to place a short statement, or "overline," above the ill.u.s.tration and to add to the amount of descriptive matter in the caption below it. This is doubtless due to two causes: the increasing use of ill.u.s.trations unaccompanied by any text except the caption, and the effort to attract the casual reader by giving him a taste, as it were, of what the article contains.

DRAWINGS FOR ILl.u.s.tRATIONS. Diagrams, working drawings, floor plans, maps, or pen-and-ink sketches are necessary to ill.u.s.trate some articles.

Articles of practical guidance often need diagrams. Trade papers like to have their articles ill.u.s.trated with reproductions of record sheets and blanks designed to develop greater efficiency in office or store management. If a writer has a little skill in drawing, he may prepare in rough form the material that he considers desirable for ill.u.s.tration, leaving to the artists employed by the publication the work of making drawings suitable for reproduction. A writer who has had training in pen-and-ink drawing may prepare his own ill.u.s.trations. Such drawings should be made on bristol board with black drawing ink, and should be drawn two or three times as large as they are intended to appear when printed. If record sheets are to be used for ill.u.s.tration, the ruling should be done with black drawing ink, and the figures and other data should be written in with the same kind of ink. Typewriting on blanks intended for reproduction should be done with a fresh record black ribbon. Captions are necessary on the back of drawings as well as on photographs.

MAILING PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS. It is best to mail flat all photographs and drawings up to 8 x 10 in size, in the envelope with the ma.n.u.script, protecting them with pieces of stout cardboard. Only very large photographs or long, narrow panoramic ones should be rolled and mailed in a heavy cardboard tube, separate from the ma.n.u.script. The writer's name and address, as well as the t.i.tle of the article to be ill.u.s.trated, should be written on the back of every photograph and drawing.

As photographs and drawings are not ordinarily returned when they are used with an article that is accepted, writers should not promise to return such material to the persons from whom they secure it. Copies can almost always be made from the originals when persons furnishing writers with photographs and drawings desire to have the originals kept in good condition.

PART II

AN OUTLINE FOR THE a.n.a.lYSIS OF SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

I. SOURCES OF MATERIAL

1. What appears to have suggested the subject to the writer?

2. How much of the article was based on his personal experience?

3. How much of it was based on his personal observations?

4. Was any of the material obtained from newspapers or periodicals?

5. What portions of the article were evidently obtained by interviews?

6. What reports, doc.u.ments, technical periodicals, and books of reference were used as sources in preparing the article?

7. Does the article suggest to you some sources from which you might obtain material for your own articles?

II. INTEREST AND APPEAL

1. Is there any evidence that the article was timely when it was published?

2. Is the article of general or of local interest?

3. Does it seem to be particularly well adapted to the readers of the publication in which it was printed? Why?

4. What, for the average reader, is the source of interest in the article?

5. Does it have more than one appeal?

6. Is the subject so presented that the average reader is led to see its application to himself and to his own affairs?

7. Could an article on the same subject, or on a similar one, be written for a newspaper in your section of the country?

8. What possible subjects does the article suggest to you?

III. PURPOSE

1. Did the writer aim to entertain, to inform, or to give practical guidance?

2. Does the writer seem to have had a definitely formulated purpose?

3. How would you state this apparent purpose in one sentence?