In this edition: APPM news from Darrell Hoemann

Online galleries: Photo editors and online managers from New York to Oregon share inside info on this thriving newspaper Web trend. Their efforts range from getting started to getting fancy with Flash. Click here for the complete story.

Training notes: Upcoming sessions in Illionis and Canada. Click here for links to more information.

Cooperation: Members contribute to AP news, photo reports. Click here for more.

A SNAPSHOT OF ONLINE PHOTO GALLERIES
The photo gallery as part of a newspaper's Web site is still relatively new, but many sites are striving to use more and better galleries. A survey of photo editors and directors finds the online galleries offer challenges, but also can prove among the Web's most popular features.

SHOWCASE PHOTO Congratulations and thanks to Susan Tiller of the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal for quickly sharing with other AP members a photograph of a race car crashing into the pit area during the ARCA event at Daytona International Speedway Feb. 12. The image showed photographer F. Peirce Williams tossed into the air when the car driven by Blake Feese missed the pit. Williams, slightly injured, returned to work while another photographer suffered more extensive injuries and was taken to a hospital. Tiller's dramatic image was judged the APME Member Showcase Photo of the Month for February. Click here to view a larger version of the photo.

For photographers, they bring extra work. But they also bring the rewards of high viewership.

"At the Argus Leader, we pride ourselves on the interaction between our newspaper and our online product," says Val Hoeppner, photo editor of the Sioux Falls, S.D., daily. "Photo galleries are a big part of that online coverage" and get a lot of feedback, she says.

New software for creating the galleries and an improved online content management system have given the newsroom more control, she says. One issue in South Dakota is the lack of high speed access in many locations, which forces photographers to use dial-up connections. Hoeppner says that makes for a long day at a state basketball championship.

"My photographers hate uploading galleries from the road," she says.

While special events and newsroom projects are typical candidates for a Web photo gallery, some publications use a gallery to drive a print feature.

At the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, the photo department created a feature called "First Person," a multimedia presentation produced entirely by photographers, says Photo Editor Scott Norris.

The feature explores the ordinary and the extraordinary, Norris says, and uses as few as five and as many as nine images. It also runs in print as one or two photos with the transcribed audio. The effort has been popular but comes at a cost. Norris said each "First Person" package requires two full photo shifts, but the response assured editors the time was well spent.

Gallery production takes extra time, Norris says, because writing captions for online is different. Because there are more images, each caption needs to be unique and have additional information. Galleries also are created from travel page stories at the request of the online staff. These, Norris says, "aren't necessarily built on picture strength, but on reader interest. Readers want to see more."

Norris says efforts are made to supply images to the Web quickly. During a recent snowstorm, he says, the assistant managing editor of the Web operation watched images roll in from the field and posted them as they were available.

While Web sites have room for a large number of images, it is rare for a gallery to hold more than 10 images, he says. "Viewers would shut off very quickly with repetitive photos." The exception is when four or five photographers descend on a community for a "day in the life" project creating a gallery that can reach 40 images.

The Chronicle in Augusta, Ga., makes galleries a collaborative effort, says Director of Photography Rob Carr.

The online group sends a liaison to budget meetings and photographers submit additional photos for galleries. High school football is a regular subject. "We cover three games on a Friday night and maybe use two in the paper from each game," Carr says. "We do a six-picture gallery from the game offering the readers more on the Web."

Most galleries stay in the six to 10 image range he says. The exception is the Masters golf tournament, for which the newspaper assigns five photographers and two editors. Those galleries might hold from 50 to 80 images.

Carr says galleries often make the top 10 most visited items on the newspaper's Web site. Refers from the newspaper can improve those numbers, he says.

Laura Sellers-Earl, online director of the East Oregonian Publishing Co., says all photos published in the company's six newspapers go online. The production work is done by a Web staffer. In addition to a daily review of the newspaper's print visual content, there are special events catalogued in a subsection.

"I believe it's important because on the sites that offer the galleries, they are among the top sections visited," Sellers-Earl says. "We also use this to enable photo resales, giving readers a link to order a print."

Mark Hertzberg, director of photography at the Journal-Times in Racine, Wis., says the newspaper is adding photo galleries, reasoning that online is an evolving form of publication. "Web publishing will inevitably increase while readership of the traditional printed paper seems to be decreasing. It would be foolish not to publish our photos in whatever form our readers access the newspaper," he says.

Galleries also offer longevity as opposed to a daily paper that someone may miss or throw away. And they allow the photographer to publish a greater selection of photos than may be possible in print, he says.

The Journal-Times photo staff does the production work for galleries and Hertzberg acknowledges it takes extra time. "We do it as we can, between assignments," he says.

Dennis Copeland, content manager for new media at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., brings a specific point of view as the newspaper's former director of photography.

Currently the newspaper has some galleries and is looking for an advertising sponsor for a best photo of the day feature, whether it's from a news service or staff, he says. Like other Associated Press members, Copeland says Memphis used an AP prepared slide show from the Southeast Asia tsunami on its web site, drawing viewer interest.

The newspaper also has done multimedia projects such as a gallery of 15 to 20 Jerry Lee Lewis images from the newspaper's files when the singer was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Copeland, along with staffers Alan Spearman and Lance Murphy, created a "50 Years of Rock and Roll" multimedia presentation.

A new project is combining photos, new video interviews and audio tapes for a look back at a famous bank robbery in the Memphis area. Another project Copeland plans will invite reader submissions of hunting and fishing images. Some will be used in print, but most could be used in a Web gallery.

Web galleries, Copeland adds, can be done with as few as six images, but likely no more than 20 because viewers get bored.

Mike Vosberg, photo editor of The Forum, says the Fargo, N.D., newspaper's efforts have ranged from the extremes of reader point-and-shoot and complex interactive Fash with audio.

The newspaper is trying to make Friday night sports a habit, and Vosberg lobbied for offering only images that have been toned and cropped by the photographer or photo editor. "I want the photography associated with The Forum to be good and maintain a consistent level of quality," he says.

Photographers also deal with problems filing from remote sites, but know they must meet the needs of the newspaper and the Web site, he says. Gallery production is handled by a variety of people, Vosberg says, but copy editors are uploading to the Web. He is comfortable with that process. "These are journalists that understand our values," he says.

Whether they are doing elaborate galleries or just starting, the photo editors and directors believe galleries are here to stay. As Rochester's Norris says "We hope that if we intrigue them enough they will come back."

UPCOMING APPM WORKSHOPS
An APPM Midwest regional workshop is planned in conjunction with the Illinois Press Photographers annual meeting in Evanston, Ill., April 8. The IPPA is meeting at Northwestern University and the APPM meeting will be Hilton Garden Inn from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Details will be at www.apphotomanagers.org.

A Canadian Photo Managers Workshop offered by the Canadian Press and APPM will be held in Toronto April 28-29. The workshop is held in conjunction with the APPM executive board meeting and offers sessions on working with designers, photos and the law in Canada and ethics issues. Details and a registration form are available at www.apphotomanagers.org.

COOPERATION KUDOS: MEMBERS CITED FOR AP CONTRIBUTIONS
Newspapers, broadcast stations and online news operations are AP's local eyes and ears. Their tips, quick sharing of photographs and continual updating of breaking stories help AP provide complete, accurate news and photo reports for all members. The Associated Press Managing Editors Association recognizes the best of the efforts with APME Instant Citations. These AP members will be cited for their recent assistance:

— WNAW-AM-FM, North Adams, Mass., for helping AP cover the controversy surrounding a play produced by a public school. The play by Tony Kushner included a scene in which an actress playing Laura Bush reads to dead Iraqi children.

— KWAT, Watertown, S.D., where news director David J. Law called the Sioux Falls bureau March 9 with notes and a taped statement from a Watertown city commissioner that the town's mayor, Brenda Barger, had fallen ill just a couple hours earlier that afternoon and was airlifted to a Sioux Falls hospital.

— The Indianapolis Star for transmitting two photos March 8 involving a heart operation on a 15-month-old Afghan boy who was flown to Indianapolis after an Indiana National Guard doctor diagnosed the problem during an exam at a camp in Kabul.

— The Star Press of Muncie, Ind., for sharing coverage of the sentencing of a man who pleaded guilty to murder in the shooting death of a Ball State University student during a robbery.

— The Independent of Marshall, Minn., for giving AP first word when a woman hijacked a commercial bus in southwestern Minnesota.

— The Citizen-Times of Asheville and The Watauga Democrat in Boone, N.C., for photo cooperation during a late February winter storm.

— The Independent of Marshall, Minn., and the West Central Tribune in Willmar, Minn., for information about the deaths of three Minnesota National Guard soldiers in Iraq.

Today's edition was written by Darrell Hoemann, photo and graphics editor of the News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill. and a member of Associated Press Photo Managers.