ยฉ Dennis Stock
The Contact Sheet Doesn’t Lie
When I receive a portfolio, I see the conclusion of a thought process. I never see the process itself.
The contact sheet is a different document from the photograph. It does not show what a photographer chose. It shows how they chose. The frames around the photograph you know, the ones just before and just after, the ones discarded, tell something the final selection cannot. Where they were looking. What they were searching for. How close they got before finding it. Sometimes the rejected frame is closer to the truth than the one that was chosen.
Selection is the second act. The first is the shot. Without both, a photograph does not fully exist. A frame that is never chosen is raw material. It becomes a photograph only when someone decides it is worth something. It is also why the selection made by an editor says something different from the one made by the photographer. Not better, not worse. Different.
With digital, contact sheets became grids. The volume exploded, three hundred frames in an afternoon instead of thirty-six, but that is not the problem. The problem is when the grid is scrolled instead of read. The contact sheet, in any format, requires stopping. Sitting with your own material. Speed in selection is not efficiency. It is a form of avoidance.
Some photographers never look at the contact sheet. They select on the fly, scroll through, approve or discard in a few seconds per frame. The work that comes out often shows it: it lacks the depth of someone who sat with their material and argued with it. Because selection is not a technical operation. It is the moment you decide who you are as a photographer. And that decision takes time.
As an editor I always prefer to see more than necessary. Not because I distrust the selection of whoever sends me the work. Because the selection tells me who they want to be. The contact sheet tells me who they are.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.