[Leica] Editing

[rhart76 at gmail.com (Roger Hart)]

Tina,

The editing process you describe is nearly identical to what I did a couple
of years ago to produce my book on Formula One racing in Detroit in the
1980s. I had nearly 4,000 frames (black and white and color neg) to look at.
My initial edit, on film, was a bit more than 400 images. From there I did
the A and B list, with A being keepers and B a wish list. The A list had
about 125 frames. The B list had about 100. I had those 225-plus frames
printed full-frame, black and white. Once the work prints were made I then
began working on the structure of the book and came up with four main
chapters. Seeing the prints spread out on a floor made it much easier to put
the right photos in the right places.

When all was done, I shipped about 140 photos to the publisher and 125
photos made the book. Before shipping everything off, I went back through
all the negatives again for one more look, just to make sure I hadn't missed
something great. It had beeen almost 20 years since I'd even looked at these
negatives. Nothing had. I was very satisfied with the finished product.
Having said that, I think it is much easier to edit someone else's work than
your own. As some who edits, writes and photographs for a living, I know I
am a better editor of somone else's work than I am of my own. Having another
set of eyes look over your shoulder is alays a good thing, be it for words
or pictures.


Roger Hart
Detroit
On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Tina Manley <images at comporium.net> 
wrote:

> Hi, Adam -
>
> I was very interested in the editing process, too, so I took lots of notes.
>  Maggie says that first you have to consider what the end result is going
> to
> be - book, magazine, newspaper article - etc. and remember that editing is
> very subjective and no two editors will come up with the same choices.
>
> What she does with a large body of work, like my 6000+ images, is to go
> through them first very quickly without thinking too much, putting
> everything into an A selection (favorites) and a B selection (maybes).
>  Then, considering the final use*, she goes through the A selection and
> chooses photos that would be informative for the project and those that
> might be used for transitions.  She also chooses the best of similar
> situations (considering light, composition, aesthetic values) and moves the
> others into the B selection.
>
> Look at the selections 5 to 10 times and leave in those that you can still
> stand to look at.  Live with the selection for awhile.  Sleep on it and let
> your subconscious process the selections.
>
> Maggie advices getting small prints made of your final A selections and
> laying them out in a linear fashion with like situations together.  See how
> they flow one into another - like a movie or storyboard.  Choose one photo
> that really grabs the viewer as your lead photo.  Before you finalize the
> edit, go back through all of the B selection and be sure you haven't
> overlooked anything.
>
> That's the way she edited my 6000+ down to 136.  I noticed that she chooses
> situations with several people over those with one person.  She likes
> evidence of communication in the photos.  She also likes action taking
> place
> on the edges of the photos and is not bothered by out-of-focus foregrounds.
>  That's the subjective editing she mentioned but she is such an experienced
> editor that I trust her judgement.  She's going to help me edit several
> thousand more.
>
> I hope this helps.  I think I did learn a lot about editing during the week
> by watching her edit the photos of the other 6 photographers in the
> workshop.
>
> Tina
>
> *A selection for an American magazine would be different from a selection
> for a European magazine (more edgy).  A newspaper article would include
> more
> traditional photos.  A photo story would need a beginning, middle and end.
>  A photo essay would not.  She gave the example of editing photos for the
> National Geographic, saying that they would choose parallel photos ending
> in
> the same place like a river and a road, but with one being factual and the
> other being lyrical.
>
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Adam Bridge <abridge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Tina, can you talk a little about how one goes about teaching photo
> > editing?
> > I don't have a clue about the process - at least not from any
> professional
> > standpoint.
> >
> > Thank you
> >
> > Adam
> >
> >
>
> --
> Tina Manley, ASMP
> www.tinamanley.com
>
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