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PSA Journal, March, 2003 by Eleanor Edmonds
Bulletin Editors:
To be effective, club newsletter layouts should be arranged carefully so that readers can move smoothly from page to page in an organized manner. Does your bulletin meet this goal? If not, what can be done to change the situation?
Most importantly, write precisely. Get to the point quickly. Use short sentences, strong verbs and nouns, and active voice. Avoid redundancy and condense ornate prose. Most readers tend to be more impressed with material that is easy to read and understand than with "pedantic discourse" that is hard to decipher.
To enliven pages, add art if it supports or enhances the text. Pertinent photos always give a lively lift to news items. Be cautious, however, with clip art. Abundant decorative, but meaningless clip art can impede readers, especially when used to fill small blank spaces that sometimes result during copyfitting. Avoid using art that has no meaning or relationship to the surrounding text\
Instead, consider placing a brief quotation from a well-known photographer in such spaces. Always acknowledge the quote's author. Here are some examples clipped from photo magazines and newspapers or seen in books and saved in a file for future use:
* "Composition is creating order out of chaos." Eliot Porter.
* "The illiterate of the future will be the person who cannot photograph." Moholy-Nagy.
* "As photographers, we should always push for clearer and clearer visions that help us keep perspective." Dewitt Jones.
* "Looking is a gift, but seeing is power." Jeff Berner.
* "A photographer has certain objectives: to report, to entertain, to convey a mood, to inspire. To do so, he must have a feeling for his subject." Andreas Feininger.
* "Making photographs aids the process of self-discovery. Studying your images helps it further." Freeman Patterson, FPSA.
* "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." Albert Einstein. [Einstein's quotation probably refers to his theory of relativity, but isn't it applicable to photography as well?]
Submitted by Eleanor Edmonds, APSA--Bulletin Advisory Service
Matt Daura, APSA, Editor 121 Phanturn, Bellaire, TX 77401
datex121@aol.com
COPYRIGHT 2003 Photographic Society of America, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
