By Beatriz Wallace '04
Reviewed by E.G.B.
When photographer Beatriz Wallace ’04 began graduate school at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, she thought she wanted to be a newspaper photographer. Two years later, she’s changed her mind. “I was so bored by the fly-by-night picture taking,” she says. “Working at a newspaper, you have two hours to take pictures of this person to explain their entire life. I think it takes much longer than that to understand people.” For her coursework, she has spent the past two years photographing a Missouri family, including River Dawn Mize (above, at age 3) and father Michael (left). She met the family at the shore of the Missouri River, where both she and they were living temporarily (she in a tent, the Mizes in a camper). Wallace is quick to admit that her devotion to the Mize family—she is now River Dawn’s godmother—separates her work from traditional, objective photojournalism. The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University has named Wallace, a New Orleans native, a top young photographer, and will publish her work next year in 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers.