Do you have any job skills that are now obsolete?

[brush]

390. I'd do my layout, then over to the sports department and hand it over to the editor, then check in the photo...

dept. to see if the photographer was back from the game in Manhattan. That was before digital cameras and being able go transmit photos electronically. I'd have left a space for the photo on the layout, marked FPO, for position only. Usually a vertical for a shot of a pitcher in wind up with a leg raised, or a basketball shot which would most likely be a vertical.

That would be for the one-star early edition, then later if the editor saw something on the contact sheet of a later development in the game, they'd want to do a re-plate, the two-star final edition and I'd have to stay even later to do another layout with the later photo.

I didn't mind even though it'd be after midnight by then as I would go home, sleep late and wouldn't have to be back at work until about 6:00 pm. Photographers still were using film slr cameras then. Nikons, Minoltas, Olympias. They also had Rolex 2 1/4s and 4/5s for some studio still shots with lights, umbrellas and screens etc.

I did the food section for a time and the photog's 2 1/4s had a polaroid back on them for quick proofs for me and the editor to look at before. developing the film and get a print of a shot. That was when the old,handy proportion wheel would come in for sizing...red crayon marker on the photo white margins for tje vertical and horizontal measurements, then take the print to the darkroom for film, then the composing room for platemaking etc.

It was busy, hectic but we'd get the job done.