CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHIC CANDIDATES EXPERIENCE TRAINING AND THRILLS

The following article describing Crimson Photographic Competitions was written by W. J. Hazard '29, former Photographic Chairman of the paper.

The fascination which drives a CRIMSON candidate through nine weeks of competition to the exclusion of the unusual joys of undergraduate life is due chiefly to the variety of the work. The four departments opening their doors to prospective editors tonight offer four totally different paths of expression.

The benefit derived from work in the Photographic department is primarily a practical knowledge of the taking, developing, and enlarging of pictures. But the attraction which grips the neophyte who cannot distinguish between a lens and shutter when he reports, and his type constitutes the majority of candidates, is more deep-seated than a mere liking for the art of photography itself. Through his contacts and appointments with outsiders, he becomes aware of phases of the life of the University that were unknown before. He meets visitors of world-prominence; and seeks with equal eagerness the photographs of European exchange professors and of ponderous teeth newly-discovered in the Dental School. Though each individual experience in his CRIMSON career may be of slight importance, nevertheless, there results a background of knowledge which is immensely valuable throughout his undergraduate years. He has learned where to go for information of all kinds when he desires it, and this intimacy with his surroundings gives him a self-assurance which many first-year men lack.

The busy candidate does not at the time think of these less apparent benefits. He is wrapped in the task of issuing a Pictorial Section every other week. He not only experiences the first glamor of newspaper work, when he learns the mechanical mysteries of how half-tones are made and how the presses rhythmically roll out their printed pages, but his vanity is tickled by the thrill of seeing his own handiwork impressed on thousands of papers. His photographer's pass permits him to brush elbows with his professional brethren of the "Fourth Estate" at intercollegiate baseball games and track meets.

By competing for the Photographic department, the man who is already a lover of photography can practice his hobby in a dark-room fully equipped with the apparatus that he has been forced to forego during his residence in the Freshmen Halls, and he has at his disposal a Press Graflex to use for his personal as well as his CRIMSON pictures. By far the larger group, however, come out, unskilled as photographers, to increase their interests and broaden their friendships; and, if successful, they emerge feeling they have at last found their place in their college world. The fruits of their accomplishments they taste for the next three years, for if they so desire, they may rise as editors to positions of executive importance on the CRIMSON and of prominence in their class. Their interest does not flag at the end of their novitiate period, but the novelty and variety of CRIMSON work stimulates them further.