Great article Tom. As stated elsewhere and reinforced in your article, the photography is a major component of writing an article.

What to do if one is not a shutterbug and has but a point-n-shoot camera to work with? I know, the obvious answer is buy a SLR and learn to use it. But what if there is no desire to step into 'real' photography? I can see Comstock's eyes rolling now. Sorry Charlie, photography isn't my thing. Working with photos taken by others I do on a daily basis. It is the desire to be behind the camera that I lack. Knowing this I am reluctant to plop down a wad of cash on a camera. I know me. I would end up leaving it on automatic all the time rendering it no more useful than my pocket camera.

I have a proofing monitor ICC calibrated to Adobe RGB 1998. Surely that should be adequate for a magazine that is read exclusively on RGB screens. If I can make my amateur pictures look right on a calibrated monitor is that good enough?

I also have several articles in mind, but I do not have a top-of-the-line camera. (Was that the right style?)

What format should videos be? I plan to include a video with one submission.

Thomas

DeSoto, TX

It is really helpful to have an actual example of how an article is born. From it's inception,
to the final delivery. As MRH increases it's readership and worldwide following, there will be many more
advertisers coming online to advertise on MRH and thus support the magazine. This will lead to more article submissions and someday increased payouts to the authors for their time and contribution to the hobby.
Well done !

And, let's not forget to thank Joe and company for another outstanding issue of my favorite magazine.

Randy

To those of you who consider yourself camera-challenged ... that's one good reason to make some friends in your local area with other modelers. Almost always, there's someone nearby who can handle themselves with a camera.

Barring that, we're developing some relationships with modelers around the country who are good with a camera. If all else fails; we can hook you up with one of them and have them take the photos.

It also depends on the type of article. For example, Alan's benchwork photos have been perfectly adequate to illustrate his posts. When the subject is not some closeup fiddley little modeling detail project, then slightly above average camera skills and a simple digital camera may be fine.

For some modeling projects, you can send the model to us and we will photograph it / video it. We've done that in the past.

For layouts, we can always discuss a visit by MRH staff or one of our trusted layout photographers.

As to video, we prefer HD video, 720 or 1080. Unless you are skilled at editing, just send us the raw footage and we will assemble it into a final piece. We prefer MP4 or WMV format.

Pull out the Red Felt tip and go to town

Still living it to this day! My mother was a career elementary school teacher for 30+ years. She still can't help but grade everything I write or speak. I suppose I am better for it but have to admit it can sometimes be irritating. Hope my mom doesn't read MRH. I could be looking at serious detentions.

I went slightly differently then the author of this piece, but my idea was a bit different too.  Though, in the end, it is coming down to getting that last photo.  I have now reached out to two other local authors of pieces for help in bagging the last piece to the puzzle - the cover photo.

But, I started with an idea, and filled out the "Are you interested e-mail?". Charlie said yes.  My project is coming up on 2 years writing now, but it is slightly larger in scale, including the visit to the real car I ended up modeling the interior of!  And I tracked down the entire video of the real train - all 23 SECONDS of it..

In the modeling process, I made mistakes.  I take the reader down each path, then tell them what went wrong and how I ended up fixing it. I'm still tweaking.  I also took advice in the modeling - and I name some names of where I got the ideas and help.  Right now I am taking advice on creating a cover photo, from our own Joe Fugate.

Taking photos while I worked wasn't hard - a point and shoot does well for some things, a stage with 2 color balanced bulbs for some others used stuff I already had.  For photographing the real train - I went FILM, why?  40+ years experience with film...  And a slide scanner that can make the slides digital very easily and well.

As for the writing, for me it was easiest to write as I modeled, especially the bill of materials and tool list.  This would also suggest what photos would go with it.

My .02$ for my experience.

And now I have another idea for a much shorter article for next time, but Joe, I am not going to even start it until this project is done.

Hello, 

I will offer my service for anyone in the Hagerstown Md area that writes an article and needs some photos taken I would be glad to visit your layout and take photo;s for you. Maybe a few other photo bugs would be willing to do the same. 

Joe Goodrich

The article was clear that MRH can work on the writing part of the article with just about anyone who can have a coherent thought. Don't let that be an obstacle if you want to be published. If the staff doesn't understand what you're saying, they will ask.

  It is much harder to get publishable photos than it is to get publishable words.

I want to encourage all of you to give writing an article for MRH a try. As a published author in MRH I had no previous writing experience or expertise. I just tried to imitate the conversational style of other authors and add my own style (if you can call it that). When I write I try to imagine that I'm just chatting with someone sitting with me and write down that chat. Of course MRH has excellent hints and guidelines to improve the results.

Writing articles for MRH is a great way to "give back" to the hobby while at the same time earn some cash to fund your railroad! By the way, I always give the president of the railroad (my wife) some of the proceeds from my writing as a gift - it helps "grease the wheels" if you know what I mean.

writing for scientific and technical journals, which is what I've done most of my life.  The MRH staff make the writing easy, and they will do everything in their power to make your photos better.

That said, is your point and shoot really that limiting?  My Nikon Coolpix has nearly as many setting options on it as my Sony DSLR - you just have to read the manual to know that it does.  For instance I can go to the close-up/macro mode and get nice tight photos form about 4 inches away.  I can also manually set the IOS and white balance, though it can't really bracket exposures the way the DSLR does. 

So grab out that manual and go for it!

Joe Fugate just e-mailed me and my article is done, including the last photos.  Another local author will get credit for the cover photos, though I get an assist.  My train, his layout, he pulled the trigger, I post processed in Photoshop, then our own Joe Fugate added some final Photoshop touches.  And Joe was advising both of us along the way.

Been a pleasure to work with everyone to make this possible, especially Joe for his patience with this rookie.  This article grew much larger than my original idea, but I kept at it.

Oh, and Joe just green lighted my idea for my next article, which will be much shorter.  The last of the parts are already ordered and due in next week sometime.  Oh, and a kit from Accurail is due out next week.   And decals for 12 different road numbers - can you say instant train?

Congratulations, Mycroft- glad to hear that you're going to be published. I'm anxious to see the article. And your experiences with the folks at MRH certainly mirror mine- really great people to work with.

Tom Patterson

To the MRH staff,

I for one do not mind reading about an article that has not been "polished" by an accomplished writer of photographed by a professional or highly skilled amatuere photographer as long as the reading makes sense and the photos are nice and clear.  This is what I think most of us are looking for in this magazine or e-zine as we know it.  

Nelson,

I would think that it is important to put your best foot forward. On the forum, that's exactly what you have. Home grown articles. They are a great source of inspiration and information. However, for a world wide publication it must be polished. I truly believe that it is the polish that sells a magazine. Not sure that many advertisers would be too anxious to spend their advertising dollars on anything less.  I know I sure wouldn't. I believe that it is because of the expert layout, paste up and editing that make this the great magazine that it is. There is a sense of continuity and consistency that sets magazines apart. It is the extra polish that places  this magazine ahead of the competition.

For homegrown, we read the forums. But for any publication to be taken seriously, it has to be presented the best that it can be.

Great work and a big thanks to Joe and his team for this outstanding publication.  

Randy

Actually, it's not the writing that makes or breaks an article, it's the photography. If you can write like a pro but your images look terrible, then the article won't fly.

The reason is simple. Text can be edited to make you sound like a million bucks. But if your images are poorly composed, blurry, poorly lit and so on, there's little we can do in Photoshop to fix it.

Writing skills, or the lack there of, are not the problem. It's passable photography skills. Of course it helps if you can do decent modeling as well ...

Things that make a digital magazine something distinctive and compelling in the web landscape:
 

1. It is finite

Readers want something they can finish and that creates a sense of accomplishment. "I finished the March issue." As a reader, you don't "finish" a website. "I finished reading the Adobe website" isn't something people say. Visiting a website does not give you the same sense of completion you get from a digital magazine.
 

2. It is linear

A digital magazine has a cover, a table of contents, and a series of articles. You can start at the front and read through it until you reach the back. By contrast, websites are not linear. They are built on hyperlinks, which allow you to jump around in any desired order and there's not a front, middle, and back to a website. (Okay, the home page may be a website's front, but there's no obvious middle and back to a website.)
 

3. It is periodic

A digital magazine comes out on a schedule, be that weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or otherwise. Readers anticipate the release of a new issue, and they engage more with the content and the advertising when it's delivered in well-delineated "editions". By contrast a website is more of a constant continuum that's ever changing.
 

4. It is cohesive

Part of the appeal of a magazine is that it’s been edited and curated. Its editors cull out the most interesting and most relevant content for the readers.

The content is not comprised of an isolated collection of articles or stories. Instead, the content is connected and cohesive. Frequently there’s an introductory letter from the editor that creates context for the content that follows.

The whole (the collection of curated articles) is greater than the sum of the parts. The cohesive property of its content is core to what makes a digital magazine very different from a website.

==================================================================

So we don't publish raw "home grown articles" in our digital magazine. That's what the website is for. The magazine content needs to be edited, polished, and vetted by the editorial staff to be a cut above the "home grown" content on the website. That's also why we pay for articles in the magazine but we don't pay for website content.

While magazine article authors do need to put a little more thought into a magazine article than they do a website post, it's our editorial staff's job to help you pull together an article that rises above "home grown" in its presentation. It's a team effort, and if you're a new author with a magazine article idea, then dialog with us about it and we will help.