Fall message from the President

[Ed Davidson]

Click on this link to read Angelo Iafrate's fall 2008 letter to the AAW membership.

 

[Joe Greiner]

I wonder if we might get better response to Angelo's invitation to write, if there could be some relaxation of the photographic requirements. I appreciate that the Journal's standards should be as high as possible. But all of the Works-In-Progress pictures I've posted (on other forum(s), unfortunately, but also VBulletin) have been limited to 100Kb by the software. The easiest way I've found to do this is to use my small but versatile camera at its lowest resolution for direct upload. Photography at higher resolution would require both more storage and image reduction for upload; or, having developed a technique, having another run at it for publication quality. Granted, the second run could verify techniques; but all of those extra steps can be impediments discouraging potential writers. Creative writing is hard enough already.

Just my 1.5 cents worth.

Joe

 

[john lucas]

Joe It's actually quite easy to get the photos sizes that Carl needs. Just send a CD. I do that for all the other magazines I write for. When I do photos for the tips pages of the Journal I send one at a time as a 5x7 at 300 dpI but the best approach would be to simply e-mail Carl and say, I have this idea for an article how do I send it and what size photos do you need and how do I send those. This is what i did for years. All of the editors I've worked with are more than willing to work with you to help produce a better product.
many of you out there could easily write an article. I know, I've talked to many of you and have yet to meet an illiterate uneducated turner. If you feel your grammer isn't up to par don't worry, that's why they call him an editor, he can correct this or have someone else on the staff to help out. If I'm in doubt (and I ain't no english major) I ask a friend to look over the copy and make sure it's understandable.
Photos can be a problem. You do need to have a decent camera and take a few steps to produce better images. feel free to e-mail me and I will help in this area where I can. You can often find another person in your club or circle of friends who can help in this area.
Go for it. you might surprise yourself, and we might get to learn a fun project from you.

 

[Joe Greiner]

Everything you said is right, John. At least for the individual steps. Where I've surprised myself is in the woodturning. I seldom start a project with the expectation of something to actually publish, so documentation has been quick and dirty. The icosahedron ball was a perfect example, and as for explanations, when I described it at our WT club's show'n'tell there was dead silence.

My own creative writing ability is better than half bad, with several published newspaper letters expertly edited - more as Citizen Joe than Woodturner Joe. Other folks might have been discouraged, and your suggestions will help them a lot. The photo quality is still a sticky point, though, and I guess we can each re-assess the issue of extra steps being an impediment.

Brain surgery is easy if you know how. Tying your own shoes is difficult if you don't know how. Like, what's a CD?

Joe

 

[Steve Worcester]

Having has a few articles published myself (no, really!) it is different and over time, you actually start to think in your mind (I do anyway) the methodical steps to accomplish it, including what photos you would like to have and what you need to have, in the artcile to get the method across successfully.
I remeber when I had to do the whole think in film vs digital. The photos that you take are easy to do with a decent digital camera that you can accurately manually focus. Auto focus will drive you crazy.
The photo requirements referred to are way different from here as you are only working with the web, not 300 DPI printing requirements (or screens, or whatever). So there isn't really an association with what would go on the gallery pages vs into the journal, other than you could take the pictures shot of quality needed for the journal and resize them to put them on the gallery pages.

 

[Mike Marek]

Where's the list

Angelo's letter mentions a list of potential articles. Any one have a list to the list?

Cheers
Mike
WWW.thewoodenquill.com

 

[Angelo]

Projects

Hot Joe,

This is the link to the thread I referenced in the last article I wrote:http://www.aawforum.org/vbforum/showthread.php?t=5037

Article ideas are mentioned throughout

Angelo