December, 1998

This journal is a tribute to you, the reader; to my colleagues on the web site; and to our producer, who conceived of the web site; as we look back at our first year together.

First, to you, the visitors to this web site, thank you for taking the time to read our journals and look at our photos. I'm still not used to writing and shooting photos for a global audience that is virtually unknown to me.

I am used to working for a different audience, some 70,000 people in the community in which my family and I live, work, and play. They are the people I see at stores and at restaurants, at our sons' schools, at their hockey and soccer games, their track meets, on my bike rides, and so on. Many of them are people I know by name, others are people I don't know as well, but whose faces I recognize from shooting thousands of frames of film in Racine over the last 20 years.

My web audience is mostly anonymous, save for the few dozen people who have sent comments to our talkBack link, or who have sent me personal notes. Yet I know that there are tens of thousands of you around the world. Some of you are seasoned pros and some of you are high school students considering a career in photojournalism. No matter what your reason for reading our journals, we appreciate your interest in our work. There is obviously no reason to keep the site going if no one looks at it.

While it takes hours for my work to "hit the door" or reach our readers in Racine...newspaper photos have to go through an intricate pre-press process, the press has to be run, and then we have to wait for carriers to hand deliver our newspaper...my web journals reach my global Internet readers within minutes of my posting them to our edit desk.

I've made almost a dozen new friends through the site. Those friends are my fellow contributors to this web project. I look forward to reading their new journals each time one is posted. Some of their words and pictures have made me laugh, others have saddened me. I've gotten to know these people, just as you have, through their participation in Behind the Viewfinder. Our computers have brought us together, because most of us have never met. We are hoping to finally get together one weekend this winter. I'm proud that the site has won numerous "site of the day" honors, and is linked out of photo sites on at least three other continents. I've spent a lot of time working on the project, but I've enjoyed the challenge of sitting down and trying to verbalize my work in a visual medium. It has helped me become a better journalist, by helping me think more about my work and responsibilities to our readers.

Our producer, Fritz Nordengren, has guided us, counseled us, inspired us, and led us through the year. His leadership has gone beyond conceiving of the project and handling its mechanics. His leadership has ensured its success. Imagine, if you will, getting involved in a project like this at the request of someone you have never met or talked to; someone you've only had a few e-mail exchanges with. He's our Pied Piper.

I wish you all the very best as this first year of Behind the Viewfinder comes to an end. Each of you, whether you are a reader, a participating journalist, or the webmaster, is an integral part of its success. I look forward to Year Two.

Mark Hertzberg

December, 1998