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The Decisive Moment III

A blog about photography with a slant toward photojournalism and documentary photography.

In my first and second blogs, I wrote about photography's "decisive moment." The original plan was to call this on-going blog The Decisive Moment even though I would move on to other subjects in photojournalism. I was under the impression the title and description of the blog would remain atop each new entry.

I was wrong.

So here's how I'll do it: I will continue to call this blog The Decisive Moment but add a Roman numeral to each so you'll know what order they're in, if that matters to anyone.

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On to the latest topic...

The Quest to Get Published

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Let's face it, all artist-types are like children and we want to be told what we're doing is a good thing. Possibly the best way of telling a photographer this is by publishing his work.

There are publications and then there are publications. In the old days LIFE magazine was the Holy Grail for photojournalists. There was also LOOK but the heyday of those periodicals is long gone. However, there are still many, many national magazines of high caliber that any photographer would be honored to be in. TIME, Newsweek, National Geographic... even Playboy. Having a photo or photos in any of these are indeed a pat on the back of any photographer.

Then, of course, there are publications of lesser caliber. Regional publications don't have the clout that national ones have with the exception of The New York Times (both the newspaper and The New York Times Magazine on a Sunday) which is really an international publication.

In 2010, I published a book titled Mickey Rooney Was Right, which is my autobiography about being in the entertainment industry and never having any long-term success in it. In the early chapters I write about my developing interest in photography (no pun intended) at age 14, studying photography at Malverne High School and then majoring in photojournalism in college. I also write about my quest to get published.

The good news is over the years I had some success getting published in national magazines but they were all in the 1980s and 90s. One, in 1985, was a college edition of Newsweek called Newsweek On Campus. I won a student photojournalism contest with pictures I shot at a Catholic school in NYC which were part of a long-term photo essay. I was actually interviewed and quoted in it, and they ran two of my photographs.

Soon after the 21st century rolled around I made it a goal of mine to get published in a national magazine... and one with some clout.

If you read my book, and I hope you do, you'll see I came close with LIFE twice. The first time was in 1986 when I was a finalist in LIFE's Contest for Young Photojournalists. Only a finalist.

The second time was in 2004, when LIFE was back as a weekly newspaper supplement, and I had a face-to-face meeting with the photo editor. She loved two series of pictures I made (each with a short text) and was ready to run them both but needed the approval of the managing editor.

He didn't approve.

I took these two series, as well as a third one, to just about every magazine that would look at them. One series I call Second Period Dance Class. I had taken the photos when I was a high school photography teacher in California. I hit every dance magazine I could find.

About four of them are published by the same company in New York City and when I struck out with one, I walked it over to the next editor at the next desk in the same office.

None of them wanted it.

Eventually these three series went to countless magazines, both national and regional. Some gave me praise followed by a lame excuse while The New York Times Magazine didn't say anything, they just sent it back.

After a while I started running out of places and I sent a series about Winter Guard (sometime called Color Guard) which is called, "The Sport of the Arts" to National Geographic. What was I thinking?

With all print publications exhausted, I turned to the Internet. The Winter Guard International (the governing body that sets the rules and standards for guards) was kind enough to run my article on its web site. And you know what? As soon as it was posted I received fan mail from all over the country!

The webmaster archived the story and I was able to give people the link for a few years until the link no longer was active.

One of the other series I was shopping around was called Coming of Age in the 1980s. When the 80s were officially 20 years past, they became retro. Since that was the decade of my youth - and I have lots of photographs that are screaming "1980s!" - I put together a series of pictures with a short text.

I found a national magazine called American Heritage which, in my mind, was a perfect match for this series. You'll have to read my book to hear just how ridiculous the editor's excuse was.

Once again I turned to the Internet. Prebble Ramswell, the webmaster of www.Only80s.com, gave me my own page on her site with the complete text as I wrote it and all the pictures. She posted it in 2006 (I think) and it's still there. I've been sending people to it ever since.

So maybe I really don't need a print magazine. Maybe this Internet thing is just as good. Or could it be better?

I think so.

Not only is Coming of Age in the 1980s still there, Prebble allowed me to update it with two "new" pictures. I found two more that are screaming "1980s!" and just a few weeks ago she updated the page for me.

Since the winter guard article on the WGI site was no longer active, I found a new site to post it. Currently it's up and running on the website for Halftime Magazine. (The editor made a few changes to this one, including changing the title from Photographing Guard to Shooting Guard, but nothing that I can't live with. I haven't received any fan mail this time around.)

I still haven't found a home for Second Period Dance Class or the fourth one, California Girls. (The winter guard series and California Girls were the two the photo editor of LIFE wanted to run. The original text to go with the guard series was completely different from what's posted on HalftimeMag.com.)

I'm still sniffing out national magazines that I can submit to. I found one... in England... that considered running California Girls but ultimately said no. I've struck out on two continents.

Allow me to leave you with some links. The first is my site, www.DavidPaone.com. There you can view a few of the California Girls pictures (without the text) and under "National Magazines" see a few of the ones I was published in.

The next one is the direct link to my book on the publisher's site.

http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/BookDetail.aspx?Book=286407

I don't expect you to buy the book but of course I'll be thrilled if you do. If you want to read it without buying it, the Malverne Public Library has it. You can read in more detail about my meeting with LIFE and my quest to get published.

The next two links are direct links to Coming of Age and Shooting Guard. http://www.only80s.com/comingofage.html and http://halftimemag.com/articles/web-exclusives/on-guard/shooting-guard-a-photo-essay.html.

And lastly, there are a few pictures from these series posted here. If you go to these other sites, feel free to skip the text and just look at the pictures. I won't mind.

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