The book's subtitle, "The First Photographer on the Red Planet", has me wondering
how that will make all the previous Mars probes feel. Except maybe Mars 3 - there's
just nothing you can do with that image.

The issue about the subtitle is a valid one, and is one that I went round and round with the publisher about. My original subtitle was "The First Photographers on the Red Planet", because my point was exactly what Doug deduced from the excerpt: we--the team, the rovers, all of us--have the luxury of routinely thinking about photographic, artistic issues in the imaging for the first time in the history of Mars exploration. My editor, the publisher, and the marketing department all wanted me to take out the "s" on "Photographers", to make it seem like a more personal journey. I said, "that's going to piss off my colleagues who have been involved in previous Mars missions." They said "so what." I held my ground and we were at a standoff for some time. But they are more clever than I am. They then decided that they didn't like my main title either, and wanted something different because "Postcards" sounded too trifling to them (silly little pieces of heavy paper...). Ultimately, I had to trade losing the "s" in the subtitle for keeping "Postcards." I am not too happy about it, and expect to take significant flack from some of my colleagues, none of whom I was trying to disrespect. Hopefully if they actually read the words in the book, they will arrive at the same (correct) interpretation of what I meant that Doug did.

Well - Viking 1 and 2 and Pathfinder took pictures...and Sojourner moved and took pictures - but I don't think the title 'photographer' is appropriate for them or their teams.

Figure 31 was the first of the three panoramas to be obtained. The rising Sun backlights the entire scene, sharply delineating drifts of sediment and shadowing a prominent boulder about 2 m across and 9 m from the spacecraft. This is probably the most publicized picture taken during the entire Viking mission. Within a day after it was released it appeared on the front page of virtually every major paper in the United States, and many other papers around the world... The ultimate compliment came from a friend of mine who could look back on a distinguished career as a photographer for Life during the heyday of that magazine. After the picture was first described at a special news conference, he came up and remarked, "That's a good picture." "Of course," I responded, thinking primarily of its technical qualities. "No," he returned. "You don't understand. It's really a good picture."

THESE, however...
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/23/
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/10_12_...98_olympus_rel/

THEY..are photographs

Oh, OK. So a working definition of a "photograph" from an orbiter is "an oblique image of no scientific value."

According to one of my perfectionist geology professors, the word "photograph" explicitly requires the use of film and developing fluids. The word "image" is the most appropriate for a digitally transmitted view of an object, "picture" is an acceptable but less desirable term.

One other thought, when I heard the subtitle about first photographer on Mars, I interpretted it to refer to the rovers' ability to move around to get the best or most aesthetic view of various objects, as a photographer on Earth would do.

But we speak of "digital photography", don't we?

I've been chatting with Jim Bell about various stuff and I pointed him to this link. He had the following to say (in a nutshell, Doug's right):

"The issue about the subtitle is a valid one, and is one that I went round and round with the publisher about. My original subtitle was "The First Photographers on the Red Planet", because my point was exactly what Doug deduced from the excerpt: we--the team, the rovers, all of us--have the luxury of routinely thinking about photographic, artistic issues in the imaging for the first time in the history of Mars exploration. My editor, the publisher, and the marketing department all wanted me to take out the "s" on "Photographers", to make it seem like a more personal journey. I said, "that's going to piss off my colleagues who have been involved in previous Mars missions." They said "so what." I held my ground and we were at a standoff for some time. But they are more clever than I am. They then decided that they didn't like my main title either, and wanted something different because "Postcards" sounded too trifling to them (silly little pieces of heavy paper...). Ultimately, I had to trade losing the "s" in the subtitle for keeping "Postcards." I am not too happy about it, and expect to take significant flack from some of my colleagues, none of whom I was trying to disrespect. Hopefully if they actually read the words in the book, they will arrive at the same (correct) interpretation of what I meant that Doug did.

I only hope Jim does not find himself having to spend much of the second half of November defending a subtitle somebody else imposed on him instead of basking in the acclaim for his book.

one shouldn't gauge the quality of the content of the publication by inspecting it's jacket.....

The pictures will do all the defense the book could need.

I'm just hoping that Jim didn't go over the line with this book.

According to one of my perfectionist geology professors, the word "photograph" explicitly requires the use of film and developing fluids. The word "image" is the most appropriate for a digitally transmitted view of an object, "picture" is an acceptable but less desirable term.