ยฉ Guy Le Querrec
When No One Is Watching
The most honest moment in photography is when you get back home, open your files, and no one is watching.
What you do in that moment says a lot. Most people scroll through everything in a few minutes: the images that feel strong are reassuring, the ones that feel weak get skipped. Scrolling fast is the same reflex you had in the street, reacting before actually seeing. The result is that you havenโt really looked at anything. Youโve just recognized scenes you already knew.
Editing slowly costs something. It forces you to stay in front of photographs that donโt work, knowing you made them. It makes you understand why they donโt hold. And sometimes it puts you in front of an unexpectedly strong image and admitting itโs good can be harder than admitting the others arenโt.
Looking at your own work slowly is a practice. You learn it. The first thing to stop doing is looking for the best photograph. The right question is another one: where was your attention when you pressed the shutter? Thatโs what slow editing reveals. You wonโt find it by scrolling.
An archive full of folders you never open is not a storage problem. Itโs a form of procrastination. You postpone the confrontation with your own work the same way you postpone anything that might tell you something you donโt want to hear.
Youโre not the only one. The greatest photographers who ever lived needed someone next to them during editing not out of weakness, but because emotional proximity to an image is a filter. What you see is not the photograph. Itโs the memory of making it, the difficulty of being there, the hope that you pressed the shutter at the right moment. Talent doesnโt protect you from this. It only changes the quality of the illusion.
The street puts you in front of reality.
The table puts you in front of yourself.
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.