Photography Board Emphasizes Potential Talent, Gives Training

Despite popular rumor, you need not be a budding Shakespeare or prodigious newsgatherer to become a member of the CRIMSON. Anyone with a glimmer of interest and a potential talent for making or developing pictures can avoid the treadmill of the news and editorial competitions by becoming a CRIMSON photographer.

The first opportunity of the Photo Board is, of course, to fill the cleverly captioned spaces on the front page with ingeniously conceived pictures from almost any part of the University or the city, but everybody gets an opportunity to take portrait-type pictures of visiting and local dignitaries, sports photos, and even pictures for advertisements, according to his taste.

The CRIMSON supplies darkroom facilities and materials to all candidates, and instruction according to individual needs. The degree of instruction varies: some candidates cannot print a picture when they start their competition; others begin with special pointers on the finer points of lighting and composition. And, of course, the length of an individual's competition varies somewhat according to the ability he has when he starts.

After a candidate has shown sufficient skill to convince the Photo Editors that he may be electable, he is given the chance to do a "photo feature." He selected a particular activity, or an aspect of Harvard life, and characterizes it by a series of pictures which are generally printed as a full-page insert. A successful feature can be the peak of a candidacy.

For the encouragement of those who feel that the competition will be too stiff, a look at the CRIMSON masthead reveals that graduation will take all but four of the photo-board members at the end of the year. And the photo-board has not cut a candidate within the memory of present editors.

From the moment a picture is conceived until it is engraved on the CRIMSON's Fairchild engraving machine, the photographic board of the CRIMSON executes one of the most original functions of the paper. Interest, not technical skill of expensive equipment, is the only qualification demanded