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Episode 5 of "We're Here Alone Together" (W.H.A.T.) features Billie Weiss, the Senior Manager of Photography for the Boston Red Sox. If you, like me, follow him on social media, you may actually think his name is BJ Weiss. That's merely his handle on most of social media, however... so go find him as @BJWeiss22 on both Instagram and Twitter.
Okay... I assume you handled following him on social media now so you can better follow who this artiste is (that is not a typo... he absolutely is more than an 'artist').
Billie and I started the episode by just getting the "acquaintance" part out of the way. Even if you may think I was a little effusive in my excitement about talking with him and how complimentary I was of his work over the years: trust me. I held back. As a photographer and as a huge sports fan and as a ridiculous fan of the Red Sox, I really did restrain myself from what could have come off as way too much time of utter fanboy treatment. I cannot fully describe how passionate I am about Billie's photography coverage of the Red Sox, in games and off the field, as well.
Very important note here: we had this conversation originally not all that long before the MLB actually started their season this year. The season that will have the ultimate asterisk for all-time (I'd think): the 60-game regular season of 2020, during a worldwide pandemic that, by the 3rd week of September had already claimed the lives of over 200,000 Americans.
Billie takes us through his journey in the world of photography from the time of his schooling to where he sent a resume out to the Baltimore Orioles organization in an effort to land a photographer intern gig. And that was where he got his official start. He worked with the Orioles as an intern in 2009 and again in 2011 as an assistant.
Late in 2011 is when he met the Red Sox team photographer during a series between the two teams. The two kept in touch, Billie graduated from college and he put his name into the running for an internship with the Red Sox in 2012 (which... spoiler alert: he got).
Billie talked about how different the mentality is behind the photography of the Red Sox than what team photographers were doing some 10 or 20 years ago and why it has to be so different.
Billie told me how during the first month or so of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was glued to his TV, watching the news, trying to determine when he would be able to go back to work. He described having to force himself to get out, start taking photographs again and think outside of what his "normal" was. The break from his usual day-to-day actually allowed him to finally launch his Youtube channel that he has on his back-burner for so long.
Billie's fiancé is a nurse there on the east coast, so that has added a significant additional layer to all of this for the two of them.
Though this is coming out a while after we had the original conversation, I think it's still interesting to hear our conversation about "how do you play sports during this pandemic"?
We finished the conversation talking about photography. Having worked a lot within the concert photography world, I wanted to ask Billie about being the professional when you're working with such well-known stars with some big personalities and even larger personas. We then went into some of Billie's favorite photos over the years. Don't think we didn't discuss the magic of the 2018 Red Sox season and how big the photographs that came out of that season actually became.
As I said before, you really should go find Billie to appreciate his brilliant work. You absolutely do not have to be a Red Sox or Boston sports fan to enjoy it all. So check out his website at www.BillieWeiss.com You can also get to know him a lot better through his new(ish) Youtube page ... then you definitely need to add him on Instagram and on Twitter...
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