April 2022 CAHS e-Newsletter

CAHS Newsletter

Since its inception more than half a century ago, our Journal has used all manner of graphical imagery as part of its overall content. Early editions featured artful pen and ink drawings throughout, with photographs and maps introduced as early as Volume 2 Number 1. We have published our fair share of original scale line drawings as well – many of which are still sought out by model makers in both the physical and digital "3D" realms.

While the limitations of the reprographic technology available to such relatively short-run 1960s-era publications are evident in the tonal quality of the images, all such "visuals" were nonetheless a fundamental element. Things have improved appreciably over the years. Each decade came with advances in the quality norms for publications such as ours. All involved in its production – from contributors through editors and designers to printing services – did their best to keep up. Accent-colour covers were introduced in the mid-1970s, while full-colour cover art featured for the first time in the next decade. Meanwhile, occasional increases in the number of photographs, maps, and scale line art all contributed to the overall package.

While the tired old axiom "every picture is worth a thousand words" may not be true in all cases, the more general "every picture tells a story" usually is. Especially if the pictures are themselves accompanied by accurate, informative captions. In the present-day iteration of our Journal, we strive to use as many contextually relevant photographs as possible as supporting material for the works produced by our authors.

In parallel with the academia that may produce or at some future point rely on the textual content of our publication, the visual content has an import all its own. It completes our overall coverage of the history, immersing us in Story, imprinting more permanent mental images of both the general patina and detail specifics of an increasingly distant past, locking us onto contextual realities beyond words. The visual helps us retain more of any given narrative or exposition.

In this era of an overwhelming mass of textual and visual media available just a few milliseconds away on the other side of a search engine query, our job as stakeholder specialists in our genre is to help maintain some semblance of historical quality. As the signal within the noise, subject matter specialists such as the CAHS will become even more important as the digital age continues ever onward – our terabytes of golden wheat shining through potential yottabytes of chaff.

In the decades (dare I say centuries?) to come, our CAHS.com should be at least one of the destinations online seekers will arrive at in their search for any aspect of Canadian aviation history. We aim to become increasingly more relevant in this realm even in the near term. With the number of Anywhere-Online members continuing to increase in stride with the frequency with which they access the growing inventory of digital-edition Journals on our site, things seem to be trending in the right direction. A reputation for informational accuracy, accompanied by the solid visual content we deliver, can only help in this excessively media-rich environment.

Our feature authors often supply photos (especially), maps, and other illustrations – along with informative captions. However, we do find the need to complement the visual aspects of the overall presentation from time to time. The usual approach is to reach out to our network of both official and unofficial sources to pull in what additional materials we can. Although always worthwhile, the process can sometimes become a tedious and drawn-out affair. Getting it right can take time. However, we are lucky to have such a network, and the whole process is generally a very rewarding one. We are also fortunate enough to occasionally receive photos and other illustrations "out of the blue" from interested parties far and wide. Once digitized and properly filed by subject, such contributions can often save us a lot of time and energy.

As a CAHS member, newsletter subscriber, or occasional reader, can you help us in this endeavour?

If you possess photos or other visual material that may be aviation (especially Canadian aviation) history-related, please consider letting us have them – even temporarily to scan and return if requested into our digital archive – for future use. Maybe you have a family heirloom or two, a photo album, a box of pictures, or a collection of papers that could help your organization's history or family legacy live on, accurately portrayed, in our Journal pages? Alternately, if you already have such imagery in digital form and want to join our network of contributors, I'd love to hear from you.

Please contact me at the link below with details before actually sending anything in. Any and all related correspondence will be welcomed.

Managing Editor Terry Higgins