A photographer may take dozens of shots for an assignment, which are usually edited down to just a few images for use in the newspaper and online. Details and moments significant to the photographer often don’t make the cut. “Outtakes” presents a selection of those images. We welcome comments and discussion.

Oct. 1931: The Los Angeles Times-Richfield ‘Electric Newspaper’ lights up during preview at the corner of 6th and Hill streets.

The Oct. 12, 1931, Los Angeles Times proudly announced:

Beginning tonight at 7 o’clock and every night thereafter including Sunday, from 7 o’clock until midnight or thereabouts, the news of the world will march around the corner of 6th and Hill streets in incandescent letters four feet high.

This unique news bulletin service, the first of its kind in America, is made possible by the collaboration of the Los Angeles Times and Richfield Oil Co., and will be known at the Los Angeles Times-Richfield Electric Newspaper.

Everything that is news – local, state, national and world – will pass across the board during the five hours of its nightly operation. As the vast grist of the day’s news pours into The Times’ offices by telegraph, telephone, radio, mail and messenger, it will be concentrated into brief, snappy, informative bulletins by expert newspaper men and flashed by teletype to an office in the Paramount building at 6th and Hill, where is located the huge controller of the electric bulletin board. Here another squad of men will transcribe the bulletins by stenciling machines on the wide, endless tapes which, fed into the controller, project their perforated letters on the screen, made up of electric lights in multiple banks. The effect is that of letters of light, forming words and sentences and moving continuously from one end of the board to the other, a distance of some eighty feet.

The bulletin board has a frontage of about forty feet on 6th and the same distance on Hill Street, and the four-foot letters can be read for several blocks in all directions. The device by which each letter is made apparently to move the whole length of the board makes it possible to read everything flashed, even from points where only a small part of the board is visible.

Attesting his keen interest in this important forward step in modern methods of disseminating public information, Gov. James Rolph Jr. will personally open the service tonight with a brief message addressed to the people of Los Angeles.

It is estimated that some 300 separate and different bulletins, each representing an important piece of news and the whole constituting a condensed daily history of the world, will be flashed on the board in the five hours of operation. To accommodate the changing crowds, news of major importance will be repeated at intervals.

A story in the Aug., 1980, Times employee publication Among Ourselves, on the 1931 ‘Electric Newspaper’ added:

It was apparently thought that the flashing bulletins would stimulate Los Angeles residents to buy the paper the next day to read details behind the headlines. The Times faced stiff competition from several metropolitan papers during the ’30s, and having control of the bulletins read by thousands of people downtown was considered something of a coup.

These two photos accompanied the above story in the Oct. 12, 1931 Los Angeles Times. So far, I have not found information as to when The Times-Richfield ‘Electric Newspaper’ was discontinued.

Oct. 1931: The controller of the Times-Richfield ‘Electric Newspaper’ was set up in an office in the Richmond Building. This print is now a cutout. It was scanned against a black background. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Wednesday’s “Pictures in the News” begins in Southern Califfornia, where Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti speaks to supporters at the Hollywood Palladium. Garcetti won the election with 54% of the vote compared with 46% for opponent Wendy Greuel in preliminary results. More photos

In Moore, Okla., an American flag is seen among the debris of a tornado-devastated home. Families returned to a blasted moonscape after a monstrous tornado tore through the outskirts of Oklahoma City on Monday, killing at least 24 people.

Elsewhere, a member of the FEMEN feminist activist group is arrested by police officers after she took part in a protest action inside the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris; a Syrian activist is silhouetted through the Syrian revolution flag during a protest against the participation of Hezbollah members in the fighting in the Syrian town of Qusair; and some 25,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews participated in one of the biggest weddings in the community over the past few years in Jerusalem.

The original March 16, 1937 caption reported:

Derailment of a Southern Pacific freight train in the mouth of tunnel at Tehachapi Pass smashed these box cars against walls of ravine and held up passenger traffic traffic for hours. The passengers were transferred to buses for the rest of the trip to Los Angeles.

These two photos were shot on 4×5 inch black and white film.

March 15, 1937: This second unpublished image shows the derailed Southern Pacific train cars being removed with the help of a crane in the railroad tunnel entrance. Credit: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive/UCLA

A tornado more than a mile with winds up to 200 mph roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods, setting buildings on fire and landing a direct blow on an elementary school. Hardest hit was the city of Moore.

Officials were still trying to determine the number of casualties and the cost of damaged property from the tornado that eerily followed almost the same route as the deadly storm of May 3, 1999. About 46 people were killed in the earlier tornado, which caused more than $1 billion in damage.

In Tuesday’s Pictures in the News: Residents of Moore, Okla. recover after a huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb Monday; Los Angeles voters head to the polls to elect a new mayor; rescuers prepare to move a body found in a sinkhole on a road in Shenzhen, China; and there’s more.

Aug. 21, 1939: Horses are used to launch motorless sailplane at Grand Central Flying School in Glendale.

For this blog, usually I post images produced by the Los Angeles Times staff. But this is one of those wire service images I just had to share.

When this Associated Press photo was published in the Aug. 22, 1939 Los Angeles Times, an accompanying story reported:

A man who builds 8000-horsepower, multi-engined airplanes yesterday stood on the sidelines at Grand Central Air Terminal (in Glendale) while a motorless machine generating “two horsepower” slid into the skies.

The horses were real.

And the man was Glenn L. Martin, maker of mighty seaplanes and fighting ships, who admits, after almost 30 years, to a yen to fly alone again.

Along the runway stretching in front of Joe Plosser’s Grand Central Flying School, horsemen of Los Charros, association of hard-riding film, radio and ranch folk, took their positions.

Four were for “atmosphere.”

Two held the long rope attached ‘o the peapod cockpit of Hawley Bowlus’s sleek San Fernando-made sailplane. At the signal, they spurred like mad. And while Martin, North American Aviation Co. officials and air minded Hollywood cinema men watched, the noiseless craft soared to the length of its halter.

When the glider returned, Martin asked to be permitted to sit at its simple controls.

“Not much like your bombers, is it Mr. Martin?” asked Bowlus.

The manufacturer smiled.

“Our ships–yours and mine–all have their place. Sailplaning is a grand sport that really teaches the theory of flight. With the clipped winged, heavily powered, heavily loaded military craft used today, knowledge of thermals and wind currents and the art of flying without engines comes in mighty handy in emergencies.”…

Today (1939) soaring enthusiasts maintain 800 clubs throughout the United States; they have climbed to 20,000 feet, winged silently almost 300 miles across country. Yesterday’s test proved that horses, galloping at 30 m.p.h. over ground where motorcar launching of sailplanes is unfeasible, can be put into useful operation.

The Grand Central Air Terminal, also known as Grand Central Airport, was closed in 1959.

The Glenn L. Martin Co. produced the twin-engine B-26 Marauder bomber during World War II.

In Monday’s Pictures in the News: A kiss in Paris’ Trocadero Square with the Eiffel Tower in the background; a bull gets the best of French matador Juan Leal in Nimes, France; a man leaps into a puddle of mud during the so-called Dirty Pig Festival in Hergisdorf, Germany; a hostage is evacuated by Israeli security forces following a bank robbery that escalated into a hostage situation in the Israeli city of Beersheva; a wave of car bombings across Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people; and there’s more.

March 26, 1958. Elizabeth Taylor kisses her diamond ring as she returns to Los Angeles from the Illinois services for her husband, Michael Todd, killed in an airplane crash. Her brother Howard is beside her, and others move to protect her as her limousine readies to depart from the airport. The image of an unknown bystander is reflected in the vehicle’s window.

On March 22, 1958, Todd died in a airplane crash near Grants, N.M. On March 25, 1958, he was buried at Waldheim Cemetery near Chicago.

The March 26, 1958, Los Angeles Times reported:

Actress Elizabeth Taylor, her face mirroring her grief at the tragic loss of her husband Mike Todd, returned to Los Angeles last night from Chicago. She arrived shortly before midnight at International Airport with 10 other persons aboard a special TWA flight. Miss Taylor, shielded by members of her party, moved haltingly down the ramp and was whisked away in a waiting limousine.

Too late to make the March 26, 1958, Los Angeles Times home edition, this photo was published in a later street edition. The photo was later published in the 1999 Los Angeles Times book, “High Exposure: Hollywood Lives — Found Photos from the Archives of the Los Angeles Times.”

Check out this related From the Archives post:  Michael Todd wins best picture Oscar.

Each week we bring you the very best in visual journalism.

Along the Southern California coast, thousands of kids, teachers and volunteers send a message to “Listen” to the ocean and protect it from trash and plastic litter at the 20th annual Kids Ocean Day Adopt-A-Beach Clean Up at Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey. Also in SoCal,  L.A. Kings center Trevor Lewis celebrates with fans and teammates after he scored the winning goal late in the third period to beat the Sharks in Game 2 of the NHL Western Conference semifinals at Staples Center.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick visited the makeshift memorial to the Boston Marathon bombing victims in Copley Square in Boston.

In Texas this week, six people were killed as a spring tornado outbreak destroyed or damaged dozens of homes and injured dozens.

Elsewhere, visitors walk through a light and sound installation at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, Germany; people scoop free vegetables from the ground during a handout of leftover food by striking street vendors in Athens; striking Lonmin platinum mine workers dance and sing as they gather at the Wonderkop Stadium in South Africa; people take shelter in a primary school during the cyclone Mahasen in Bangladesh; models present creations for plus-size women by French fashion designer Jean-Marc Philippe at the Palais Royal in Paris; and protesters demonstrating against the social implications of Barbie arrive at the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience in Berlin.

Add stops in Zimbabwe, India,  Israel, Manila, Nepal, Tahiti, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands to round out the report.