This issue: AP Photo Managers news

APPM in Canada: Photo managers from the United States visit their counterparts in Canada for a lively training session that may lead to permanent ties. Click here for details.

AP Archive changes: The Associated Press archive site has been changed to include a photo rerun option. Click here for more details on technology changes.

Conference: Our joint conference dates are Oct. 26-29. Click here for links to register for APPM or APME.

— June 15: Time-Out responses due
— July 1: Conference registration deadline for chance to win free stay in San Jose
— July 2: Mailing deadline for APME contest entries
— July 8: Contest entries must be received
— Sept. 9: Nominations due for Robert G. McGruder Awards for Diversity Leadership
— Sept. 25: Cut-off for $150 conference room rate at The Fairmont, San Jose
— Oct. 26-29: APME Conference, The Fairmont, San Jose

APPM VISITS CANADA FOR SHARED TRAINING
By MIKE FENDER
Director of Photography, The Indianapolis Star

A Canadian chapter of APPM? That was the call at the end of an APPM workshop for Canadian editors in Toronto April 29.

The possibility of Canadian editors forming their own chapter came as editors finished a day of sharing ideas through a series of APPM/Canadian Press (CP) sessions aimed at picture editors from newspapers across Canada.

Randall Wolf, senior photo editor at the Globe and Mail, challenged the editors to join APPM and form a chapter to work closely with CP, the equivalent to The Associated Press in Canada.

Ron Poling, executive director of CP, called the event an overwhelming success. He said getting editors together from coast to coast is really something that has never been done before in Canada. Most went away feeling inspired, he added.

APPM board members crossed into Canada at the end of April to participate in a workshop that brought together more than 50 representatives from Canadian newspapers.

Associated Press Photo Director Santiago Lyon and Poling joined board members Chris Stanfield, Steve Gonzales, Sherman Williams, Teri Hayt and Mike Fender for an APPM board meeting April 28, before the start of the workshop.

Board members Naomi Halperin and Mark Pynes joined in a conference call to discuss programming for the upcoming fall convention and membership.

Encouraging current members to renew and finding new members to join was a key topic. Renewals are running behind last year, according to Halperin, who called for reminder letters to hit the membership soon.

The board also floated possible topics for convention sessions, including a joint session on convergence, an ethics and access session involving competing wire services, and a show and tell session on lessons learned, showcasing members' successes and mistakes. A session on the effects of trauma in journalism also was brought up in light of the number of photographers being exposed to crisis situations both at home and abroad.

Titles and exact descriptions of sessions should be ironed out soon.

The upcoming move to a more dynamic Web site was also a major point of discussion at the meeting. The board previewed one possible design and viewed several other sites dealing with photography. Stanfield still hopes to have a new web site for APPM up and running by the end of the year.

Sherman Williams led an informal discussion for Canadian editors dealing with Brainstorming For Better Visuals. The lively discussion was well received by the editors, who also participated in sharing ideas.

On Friday the workshop began with a session on legal issues affecting Canadian newspapers. APPM members were surprised to learn that while we share many of the same issues, some privacy rules and access issues are even more prevalent in Canada than in the United States.

Kenny Irby led two sessions at the workshop, including one on diversity and a second on Tough Calls: Are Standards Changing. His second session led the editors through a framework of questions to ask when dealing with controversial photographs in the newsroom. The lively debate featured examples from both domestic and world situations.

APPM board member Teri Hayt, managing editor at the Arizona Daily Star, teamed up with Tonia Cowan, Graphics Director at the Toronto Star, for a discussion on Design vs. Photos. The session gave editors tips and discussion points for better teamwork with visual partners in the newsroom.

Another design perspective session featured Gayle Grin, AME Design & Graphics for the National Post. Grin offered 10 Things Picture Editors Should Know About Design.

As is a standard feature of any APPM gathering, editors spent every free moment sharing ideas with each other.

APPM past president Sherman Williams, who helped organize the workshop, came away from Toronto finding we share many common issues with editors there.

Poling added that he hopes to see the workshop become an annual event.

NEW INTERFACE, MORE CHOICES FOR AP PHOTO ARCHIVE USERS
At the winter APPM board meeting in New York, Jim Gerberich of Associated Press Global Business presented a demo version of an updated interface to the AP Archive. The interface update was combined with several new features. Also the archive and rerun sites are now united under the archive site, making for more of a "one stop" convenience for images.

The new site went live June 1, and while all the features were not immediately fully implemented, they will be phased in over the next few months, Gerberich said. In a recent e-mail and followup telephone conversation, Gerberich said these were key changes worth noting:

• AP Photo Headlines: Automatic updates of the top headlines on the new front page.

• Photo Rerun: Changes to the Photo Archive make it an alternative to photorerun.ap.org. No download fees will be charged for images which are less than two weeks old.

The photo rerun site, he said, will be phased out eventually as archive users discover they can access the both traditional archive material and images found on the rerun site. In addition to images from AP staffers, members and the archive, other content will be available, with photography from VII, a collective agency of photographers such as James Nachtwey and Alexandra Boulat who specialize in conflict photography, posted in the next several months.

These images will be available at additional cost. There is also the familiar charge for archive photos, but Gerberich notes users will warned before they download an image for which an additional assessment is charged.

• Linked content: Object Names and a new People field are hyper linked making it easier to find related content.

As Gerberich explained this new feature, it would expand a user's original search into related images that might not otherwise be brought to the user's attention. For example, he said, a user might do a search whose results include image from a recent story about an all male Saudi run school in the United States. Clicking on the object name of that image would then show all the images related to that story. This feature will become clearer as screens at the archive site become updated over the next few weeks.

The AP Headlines can also be helpful in locating images under a variety of topics. These can offer an expanded selection for members who want additional choices beyond the Photostream offerings.

An example of how this will work Gerberich said, would be coverage of the death of President Reagan. The best 50 to 70 images from his career were offered on Photostream immediately. Eventually, a collection of another 200 images were posted. Putting that many images on a single event on Photostream would overwhelm users.

The headlines or topical collections will contain both the images that moved on Photostream and related images from the archive. Topical collections, Gerberich said, may contain images that are 14-days old or less; they may also contain images which are older than 14 days, depending on the collection. A user will be notified, he said of an image that is older than 14 days, incurring an archive charge, when he or she selects download.

It also allows for more coverage of events such as the Kentucky Derby. In addition to the Photostream feed, publications who wanted an even larger selection could peruse these as well.

• Showcases: Image Showcases, found on the left side of the front page, are collections and vignettes curated by the AP.

• GRID View: increases the amount of images per page to 36.

• Easier Navigation: New controls for 1-up view files have been added. Users may scroll through images to the left and right using the red arrows at the top of the image.

• International Photos: Beginning in January all North American, Latin American, Asian and European content flow into a single database. Euro/Asia is now an archive for 2004 and previous years.

• Browser Support: Photo Archive now supports Firefox and Apple's Safari on OSX.

"Our goal," Gerberich says, "is to make it easier to find images and rely less on using Photo Rerun for a retransmission."

NOT TOO LATE TO REGISTER!
APPM and APME hold their joint conferences Oct. 26-29 in San Jose and now is the time to register. Attendees at either conference can attend programs by both groups. It's a great training value.

To register for the APPM conference, go to: www.apphotomanagers.org/Workshops.html

To register for the APME conference, go to: www.apme.com/registration/. Those who register for APME before July 1 will be entered in a drawing for a free hotel night in San Jose.

This week's installment was coordinated by Darrell Hoemann of the News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill., and an APPM member.