The assigning and culling of the photographs for each issue of TIME--a task that sometimes requires the clairvoyance of a fortune-teller and the shrewdness of a sleuth-- is carried out by ten picture researchers under the direction of Picture Editor John Durniak and Assistant Picture Editor Michele Stephenson. In the course of an average week, between 10,000 and 15,000 separate pictures, most of them tiny prints on contact sheets, will be inspected by the staff before a selection of the best of them are blown up to 8-in. by 10-in. size; from that group the final 75 or so black and white pictures are chosen to appear in the issue. (Color pictures are handled separately by Arnold Drapkin, Mary Themo and Nancy Smith.)

The process begins when the various sections of the magazine schedule their stories. Along with queries asking for reports from our correspondents in news bureaus round the world go wires requesting and suggesting pictures. "TIME'S photographers," says Durniak, "are seeking in their subjects glances and gestures--visual facts--that add information--not decoration--to the text." For this week's cover story Pulitzer Prizewinning Photographer David Hume Kennerly shot 14 rolls of film of James St. Clair to produce the photos that appear in the magazine; one became the cover portrait.

TIME recently had the problem of assembling pictures of a Vice President who had yet to be picked. "We made a guess," says Durniak, "and assigned a photographer to cover Jerry Ford before he was chosen." By the time Ford was nominated, we had already sent a color photograph to the engraving plant for the Oct. 22 cover.

Occasionally, however, the news beats the photographer. When Picture Researcher Francine Hyland had to illustrate a recent Medicine story dealing with a factory closed by asbestosis--a disease that affects workers in asbestos factories--she found that there were no photos available and the company that owned the factory would not allow any to be taken. Hyland finally located a doctor in Manhattan who had done research on the disease and obtained from him a photo of factory machinery covered by the harmful asbestos dust. By contrast, Hyland notes, last week's Modern Living story on streaking produced an embarrassment of riches. "I didn't think we'd get many pictures," she says, "but I was wrong. In fact, after the story came out, streakers started calling me to see if they could get their pictures into this week's issue."

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