Mid Rivers Review Seeking Submissions

The Mid Rivers Review, the literary magazine of St. Charles Community College, is open for submissions through January 31, 2010. So if you have something you've been meaning to send out, here is a place for it.

Check out their submissions guidelines and excerpts from past journals. The poetry is quiet good. I especially like Heather Treseler's Atomic Chicken Dance. Besides poetry, they also accept short fiction, non-fiction essays, photographs, and art work.

Tip: Photography and Freelance Writing

Doll Carriage Hunter Dawson House by Tricia Grissom

Learning about photography as I go has been my m.o. when it comes to taking pictures for my freelance articles. I've discovered tons just by doing it.

Learning to drive a stick shift takes some clutch popping (so sorry, first car) and learning photography means pointing and shooting with the camera you'll be using. So I got to thinking - Why not make a trial run of a writing assignment before you actually get it?

I wish I had. I'd have learned more thoroughly how my camera works and what all those settings mean. It's easy to see mistakes after you get home and blow them up in living color.

So pretend you're doing a story on this festival or that museum. Before you go, look at how the magazine or publication you want to write for does their photos. What angles do they like? Are there a lot of close ups? I say mimic mercilessly to get good pictures.

When the trees go up in flames in the fall, it's a great time to get some photo practice. And I confess, I just love to snap photos. My latest of my daughter with her mouth open is my favorite. I'd post it here, but I like all my body parts where they are. Fifteen-year-old girls have no sense of humor about these things.

Quick and Dirty Tips for Taking Freelance Article Photos

If only I had known then what I know now. I really tried to learn about photography before I went on my first assignment. But my eyes glazed over at the talk of f-stops and exposures. I didn't have time to take a class, but my pictures improved enormously after I looked at some basic tips Kodak has for taking pictures - with visuals!

Check out their 10 Tips for Great Pictures.

What I've learned:

Don't Put Your Subject Smack the Middle:

This is tricky because most cameras auto focus on stuff in the middle. I have to push the button halfway to focus it, then move the subject to where I want it.

Clear out the Clutter:

Use a one color background to highlight your subject matter. Stuff get's lost if the background is too busy.

Avoid Creating New Life Forms:

Sure, we always said it about Aunt Verbena, but be careful she doesn't actually end up with a pole up her butt in the photo. Watch for objects that visually merge together in the photo and move your subject as needed.

Try Different Angles:

The same subject from another angle can look uber different. Here are two pictures I took from different angles. This is Branson's Titanic Musuem shot from both sides.

Buy a 2G memory card for your camera, and go crazy. It's always better to have more pictures to choose from.

Other People's Pictures - Inspiration for Short Stories

The Daily Sauce, Sauce Magazine's newsletter about St. Louis, says the Missouri History Museum is showing a documentary tomorrow night about people who collect orphaned photographs at flea markets. It's called Other People's Pictures.

It may sound bizarre to collect photos of people you don't know, but I so understand it. Old photographs are fascinating. I love that scene in Dead Poet's Society where Robin Williams has them look at the photographs of all the students who came before them as he whispers "Carpe" "Diem." Okay, it's a little creepy too.

The documentary features one guy who's mother burned all the family photos, so he goes around collecting photos and making his own "family" photo albums. Tell me that's not a novel waiting to happen.

Since one of my goals is to write a short story this year, I think it'd be great to look through some photographs for inspiration. And they would have to belong to other people because I already know the stories behind my family photos. Anyone got any old photos? My favorite of my Grandma is above. She was a Harvey Girl at St. Louis Union Station. This picture is right after she got off work. She's taking off her uniform and my sweet tempered Gram looks mildly annoyed.