Notes from the light table

Short pieces on editing, sequencing and printing photographs, written between jobs and filed here when they are done.

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  What a crop is for

  Editing

  A crop is a decision about what the picture is about. Three ways we test one before it goes anywhere near a printer.

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  Forty frames from four thousand

  Editing

  How a first edit actually goes: small prints, one long table, and the rule that nothing is thrown away on day one.

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  Sequencing a book you cannot reshoot

  Sequencing

  When the archive is all there is, order does the work. Notes on pairs, pauses and the picture that has to come last.

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  Why we still proof on paper

  Print

  A screen flatters every picture. A proof under daylight tells you which ones will hold at the size they are printed.

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  The brief that fits on a postcard

  Art direction

  If the idea needs a deck to survive, it will not survive the shoot. What we write down before anyone picks up a camera.

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  A box of slides from 1974

  Archive

  Unlabelled, out of order and slightly pink. What we scanned first, what we left alone, and how we named the rest.