[Leica] Editing

[images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)]

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