I finally got up the nerve yesterday to call Stan Grossfeld, a senior editor at the Boston Globe. He is an acclaimed photojournalist himself; among other honors he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his photos of the war in Lebanon in 1983. He told me an interesting story and helped me redefine a question I've been thinking about. I had asked him if he had taken a photo that he thought was important but was never published and why. His response was to comment on how negative that question is. He suggested that what is more important to talk about is which photos photographers fight for "tooth and nail" and succeed in getting published.

 

So, Stan told me the story of a very young Palestinian girl whose eye had been shot out by Israeli soldiers. She has a glass eye which she must wash every morning. Stan took a photo of the girl holding her glass eye. He feels this is an important photo because it shows how civilians are often the innocent victims of conflict. But it's a difficult photo to look at and there were objections to it at the Boston Globe, also from those who are supporters of Israel. However, he fought for it and finally convinced the editors of its merit and it ran with his other photos on children in a special section. The photo was also published in the book Lost futures:our forgotten children, by the Aperture press in 1997.