That realization came at a time when advances in digital technology and platforms spurred both anxiety and layoffs among photojournalists as well as a drop in freelance editorial assignments. James Estrin envisioned an online destination that would highlight excellent photography and serious discussion of visual journalism, a mission that over the years expanded to include debates on important issues of accuracy, ethics and representation.

After some research, James suggested to Michele McNally, then The Times’s director of photography, the idea of a photo blog. There were few such blogs at the time, and none with The Times’s reputation or reach. She agreed, though she also realized it could be too much for one person to take on. That’s when David W. Dunlap, then a Metro reporter with a keen interest in photography, came on board as the incipient blog’s co-editor. Josh Haner, who besides being a fine photographer — he would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 — was conversant in the language of coders and designers, also joined the team as co-editor, setting up a simple WordPress blog for a one-week trial run.

Michele wasn’t kidding about the amount of work involved. Lens took a year to get up and running — there were so many people involved in the planning that it took about four months to agree upon on a name. We settled on Lens, a name that had been previously used for a weekly photographic column from 2005 to 2008. Originated by Anne Cronin, then a metro editor, it featured projects by staff as well as freelance photographers. Lens finally went live five days a week with a sleek design featuring a dark background, slide shows and white type. The first post declared that Lens would showcase the work of Times photographers and also highlight the best images by photographers from other publications, wire services and agencies from around the web:

“In time, we hope it will also become the center of a community of readers who are not just interested in photojournalism — in the broadest sense of visually chronicling the world around us — but actively involved in some way or other, whether professionally or informally.”