Gillian Jones-Heck has been a staff photographer and columnist for The Berkshire Eagle since 2014. She began her journalism career at The North Adams Transcript in 1992. In this Eagle Reels video interview, host Dalton Delan interviews the photojournalist about her 30-year career in news.
DALTON DELAN: How did you get your start in photojournalism?
GILLIAN JONES-HECK: I got my start when I was 22 years old, and I began at The Berkshire Eagle in 2014. So I’ve been there for about just a little over 10 years now. I got my first camera from my dad in 1980. When I went to what was then North Adams State College, there wasn’t really a photojournalism program at the time. I became an English major, and took photography classes. So I first started working in a darkroom, developing black-and-white film in college.
DELAN: Why do you teach photography?
JONES-HECK: It’s an art form that is still very important and relevant, even though everybody now has a smartphone with a camera. It’s important to continue to teach about the technical aspects, like aperture, shutter speed and composition. We no longer teach using a darkroom. That’s been the case for just about 10 years now. Everything is digital photography. A lot of my students use cellphones to take photos. That’s something I never would have imagined happening.
DELAN: Can you tell us about a couple of your favorite photographs?
JONES-HECK: It’s kind of like, who’s your favorite child? There are certainly some images that I’ve taken that are memorable. One in particular I can remember, back in 1999, photographing an air show at the Harriman-and-West Airport. The sound of the jets as they came by, you just sort of feel in your chest. I did not expect to witness a crash. It was absolutely horrific. I remember the whole day like it was yesterday. I remember taking those photos, being very shaken up and having to drive down to the Ritz Camera store at the mall to get the film developed, and then scanning those negatives so that they could be in the paper the next day. I did the job I had to do. I think a lot of journalists who experienced traumatic experiences, whether it’s war, or accidents, especially when it’s the community in which you live, you really have to carry that burden. Being a sensitive, emotional, empathetic person, it impacts us. I can remember about the time that Princess Diana was killed, I was somewhere with a camera and this little kid said, “You are paparazzi?” And I said, “No, I’m not. I’m a photojournalist.”
“It was absolutely horrific,” said photojournalist Gillian Jokes-Heck who witnessed and photographed the crash of a plane at a North Adams airshow in 1989.
DELAN: Another picture that sticks in my mind was of your mother.
JONES-HECK: That was a personal emotional journey. I talked about this as it was happening in my columns, which I started writing. Because I just thought, I can’t be the only person going through this. I wanted to share my feelings. It was a way to share with others my humanity, because I have captured other people at their best. And I’ve also captured them at their worst. I kind of wanted to say, look, I’m human. And being able to share these images was really cathartic. I still have people come up to me today and say, “Thank you so much for sharing that.” I feel really good about that.
Gillian Jones-Heck’s mother Rita stares off as she listens to music on an iPad and lies in bed at the nursing home where she spent nearly a year during 2017 and 2018.
DELAN: You reminded me of the fact that in the old days with film, it cost a lot. I was in a war zone one time in which we ran out of film, and had to courier it in. Meanwhile, we literally couldn’t film anything for several days. Is it freeing now that it’s digital?
JONES-HECK: For what I do as a journalist, digital is great. I wish we had developed it sooner. I still have anxiety dreams about being in the field, and having a film camera and going oh, my gosh, where am I gonna get these pictures developed? It’s totally freeing, I don’t have to worry about running out of film. Honestly, I don’t know how I how I did it. I’m happy to have that behind me.
DELAN: A terrifying thing, looking at the future, is “deep fakes.” What’s going to happen to journalism, and how will readers know how to trust a photograph?
JONES-HECK: It’s a matter of ethics. Ultimately, you have to depend upon journalists, because they are trained to do the job. And unless they prove otherwise, you have to respect their ethics and know that they know what is right and wrong, that they can cover an event in a way that is honest and truthful. And you have to be a critical thinker. You have to look at something and say, I don’t know if I believe that. You can’t just accept things for what they are. If you have a newspaper that you trust, if you have a news source that you trust, then you’re in good shape to navigate the world right now. The job of a journalist is more important than ever.
