From the Editor’s Desk:
Picture This
One of the things I like least about my job
is having to reject an article submitted for
consideration for publication. Sometimes,
the article is just not a good fit for the magazine; sometimes it is because a given
topic has been covered very recently. Most
frequently, though, it is because the photographs that accompany the article are just
not any good.
computer-based Nikon camera with lens
gyroscopes and anti-grav. Use a tripod. I
don’t care if you’ve done laboratory tests
and discovered that you can take rocksolid handheld pictures down to an eighth
of a second (and, yes, I did hear someone
make that exact claim once.) Use a tripod.
I don’t even care if your parents lived near
a nuclear power plant and you were born
with three legs and so can act as your own
tripod.... Use a tripod.
Articles with bad photography are not
rejected outright... at least, not if that is the
Have you got another excuse for not using
sole reason the article is not a good fit for
a tripod? I don’t want to hear it... unless it
The Stained Glass Quarterly. I contact the
involves being born with three legs. That
person who submitted the article, explain
one would be worth hearing. Or if it’s realthe problem with the pictures, and invite
Deacon Richard H. Gross, MTS
ly, really creative. Then I want to hear it,
them to submit new photographs so that
The dalmatic I am wearing in this picture was an
ordination gift from the SGAA Board.
but it changes nothing: use a tripod.
the article can be considered again. Less
than half of the people given such an
When 100 people take a stained glass tour
option choose to take it. Most — slightly
and many of them have cameras that are newer, nicer, and more
more than half — never respond. I wonder how many of them
expensive than mine and yet I consistently take better pictures,
simply despair of being able to take good pictures of their work?
guess why that is....
Interestingly, there are a few each year who try to convince me
I’m the only one who shows up with a tripod.
that I’m wrong and that the pictures are actually good. Their argument usually centers around either “Well, they look fine on my
Seriously, use a tripod. When in Germany, verwenden Sie ein
screen” or “They looked okay in the local newspaper.” And both
Stativ. In Paris, Utilisez un trépied. On Kronos, tripod yIlo'.
statements may be very true; however, neither one qualifies as any
On the Internet: srsly. use one lolz i’m srs . I
sort of proof that the photograph is printable in a magazine.
don’t want to sound like I’m flogging a dead horse, but I do