James Estrin & Josh Haner (NY Times Lens Blog): In Conversation

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We see hundreds of projects a month.   There are scores of stories on Gaza, African immigrants in Europe, and drug/gang violence in Latin America, Which doesn’t mean that these are not important subjects.  It just means that to get attention it has to have a different approach or style.  It’s exciting when we see a well-photographed story on a subject that we haven’t seen before.
 
When Marco Baroncini said he wanted to show us his black and white photographs of the Roma (gypsies) in Rome, we told him that the bar on black and white photos of gypsies was very high. It had to be at least half as good as Koudelka’s work. To our great surprise it was wonderful and Lens published it. 

We particularly want to encourage people to photograph their own communities rather than traveling abroad for professional recognition and legitimacy.