Journal Entry #2

March 23, 2001

I visited the Boston Globe for the first time on Tuesday. Making my way to the photo department I passed windows looking out over the massive presses. Getting a glimpse of the machinery and then the rows and rows of reporter's cubicles in the news room emphasized to me how newspapers need to be extremely well-organized and disciplined systems in order to produce a new paper every day.

First I met with Jim Wilson, the Assistant Director of Photography, who has been very helpful and welcoming. He explained the organization and daily life of the photo department. In his descriptions there is a strong emphasis on the individuality of the photographers and their talents as well as on the importance of the department as a system. Jim seems to be in the position of making sure their independence is balanced with the needs of the newspaper. It is this dynamic that is interesting me more and more; the tensions between the needs of a large system uncontrolled by any one individual and the unique visions of the people within the system.

 

By its very nature a newspaper needs to guide those unique, personal visions into a particular kind of realistic representation. For example, we would be disturbed to see a photograph in the newspaper that was too obviously "arty." And yet, going in the other direction, photojournalism does sometimes migrate to gallery and museum walls where it is displayed as art...

A little later, Jim introduced me to Bill Greene, an acclaimed photographer who has been at the Globe fifteen years. We had an interesting conversation about his work, his thoughts about photojournalism and why he likes working at the Globe. Check out the audio clips of Bill Greene talking about his work and see some of his recent photographs of Sudanese refugee boys settling into foster homes around Boston.