We take a lot of photos at the Cook County News-Herald. After events like the Grand Marais Arts Festival or Fisherman’s Picnic, we have literally hundreds of digital files to go through. We have good photos and bad. We have dozens of unusable pictures that are out of focus or too dark. It’s easy to dump those.
But then we have dozens more that we like. There are pictures with interesting angles, where we’ve climbed up on chairs or truck tailgates or the roof of the GunFlint Tavern to catch the action. We have interesting shots where we have crouched down in the crowd to get a different view. It is hard to pick the photo that best complements a story. We are always a bit sad that some of our favorites don’t make the cut.
However, our archives are amazing and often we manage to find a place to use the photos. In our special schedule inserts for the Wooden Boat Show, the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival and Fisherman’s Picnic, you will find many delightful photos that didn’t get published in our after-event coverage.
For example, the Fisherman’s Picnic souvenir insert in this paper (if your paper got missed, let us know and we’ll get one to you!) includes a photo of Eric Humphrey of Grand Marais taking part in the Sven & Ole’s Pickled Herring Eating Contest. Eric enters the contest every year. He has never won so his photo never made it to print—until now.
When Associate Editor Jane Howard talked to Eric Humphrey about his favorite part of Fisherman’s Picnic for her story Local thoughts on Fisherman’s Picnic, we realized we had the perfect photo in our files. Serendipitous findings like that are what make our special issues so special.
Happy Fisherman’s Picnic, Eric—see you at Sven’s!
I made a delightful discovery when I was looking for a shot of Wisconsin Street during previous Grand Marais Arts Festivals to include on this year’s festival schedule page. As I searched through the wonderful photos taken by our ad designer Laurie Johnson, I found a great photo. It included all the bright tents and some of the artwork. It included the crowd downtown for the festival. And Laurie unknowingly caught something incredibly sweet.
When she framed the street from Harbor Park, she caught the image of a young couple sitting on one of the memorial walls. They were holding hands and talking quietly, leaning in toward one another. They obviously didn’t know they were being photographed. It is a tender and romantic moment and it made me decide to use that photo for the Arts Festival page.
I doubt that the young couple knows that they are on page B4 of the July 6, 2013 issue of the Cook County News-Herald. They probably wouldn’t care. But it made me smile.
Every week we make decisions on what photos to use. You never know what the deciding factor will be. You never know when you might be included in a photo— front and center or discreetly sitting in the background. Smile!
There is a fine line between
serendipity and stalking.
David Coleman
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