Making a selection

Learning goal

You will be able to choose, from a large archive, a series that serves a certain idea and a certain number. You will explain why choosing your best photos is hard as three separate difficulties: the memory getting mixed in, a frame strong on its own not fitting the series, and the fear of losing a frame. Before starting you will set a target frame count, shrink the archive with editing rounds that each ask a different question, and write a role statement for every frame that stays in the series. Instead of deleting the frames you leave out, you will move them to a holding pool, and use the eye of an editing partner who wasn't at the shoot. You will check who remains in the final selection, especially whether dark-skinned people have quietly dropped out of the series because of their poorly exposed frames.

The question

Your friend is sitting on the floor in the middle of more than sixty small prints laid out side by side. They have decided to enlarge the conceptual series; they want a twelve-frame series. They have been looking for an hour and still haven't been able to take out a single frame. In each one they remember a morning, a walk, a conversation. There are three frames from the morning they photographed the craftsperson's hand, and all three are almost the same; but whichever one they leave out, they feel they are being unfair to the other two.

In the end they choose twenty-nine frames instead of twelve and say "they're all necessary." Why can't I choose my best photos? With so many good frames, which ones go into the series, and what happens to those left out?

Context

You learned earlier to cull frames in the editing program, rank them with stars and compare similar frames side by side (Lesson 17.3). While returning to your own frames, you practiced how the cold of that morning or a long wait misleads the eye looking at the frame, and how to get away from this misjudgment by shrinking the frames and flipping them (Lesson 23.7). In the previous lesson you reduced the thought a series will carry to a single concept statement (Lesson 26.8).

This lesson brings those tools together for a big job. Separating the best frames from one shoot and building a twelve-frame series from the hundreds of frames of a project lasting months aren't the same job. A selection isn't collecting individually good photos, but building a whole that serves an idea and a number; that is why the measure of a selection is less the frames themselves than what the series wants to say.

Simple explanation

Why is choosing so hard?

There are three separate forces that make choosing hard, and each has a different remedy. The memory getting mixed in is a frame borrowing its value from the cold, the waiting or the conversation lived while shooting it; the way to lighten this is time and estrangement. A frame strong on its own is a separate problem: a photo can be very striking by itself but not match the series' idea, light or tone. The selection doesn't have to make room for this frame; that frame may be the work of another series, another day.

The fear of losing is leaving a frame out feeling like losing it forever. Your friend keeping twenty-nine frames as "all necessary" comes largely from this fear. This fear leads to putting off the decision and, in the end, to a series that is too long, scattered, and in which every frame reduces the strength of the one before. In a series every frame takes a share of the viewer's attention; a weak or repeating frame also dilutes the effect of the strong frame beside it. That is why choosing isn't a loss, but making more room for the frames that remain.

How is a selection narrowed step by step?

A target frame count is the decision, made before starting the selection, about how many frames the series will consist of. The number is set according to where the series will be shown, a book page, a wall or a screen, and how much time the viewer will give it. A number set in advance moves the selection from the question "which ones are good" to the question "which twelve," and makes the decision unavoidable. The number can change later; but a selection started without a number often never ends.

An editing round is a stage of selection in which the archive is shrunk each time with a different question and toward a certain target number. In the first round the question is technical: are the faces readable, is the focus in the right place? Sixty frames come down to thirty. In the next round the question is the idea: does this frame add something to the concept statement? Thirty come down to eighteen. In the last round the question is the series: does this frame talk with the ones beside it, or does it say the same thing a second time? Eighteen come down to twelve. Asking only one question in each round prevents the fatigue of weighing all the criteria at once.

What earns a frame its place in the selection?

A role statement is a short sentence, for every frame that stays in the series, saying what job it does in the series: "This frame introduces the place," "This frame shows a human face for the first time," "This frame brings the old and the new together on the same surface." A frame for which no role statement can be written can be a burden in the series, even if it looks very strong on its own. If the same sentence is written for two frames, one is extra; of the three almost identical frames showing the craftsperson's hand, only one carries that sentence.

A holding pool is the place where frames taken out of the selection but not deleted are kept in a separate folder or box. Moving a frame to the pool isn't losing it; it waits there for another series, a photobook or an exhibition years later. The pool makes choosing easier by reducing the fear of losing. Opening the pool and looking every now and then helps too: a frame that didn't fit a series a year ago may sit right in the middle of a new concept statement. The pool's only rule is that the frames there aren't called back until the selection is finished; if every frame comes back, the editing rounds lose their meaning and your friend's twenty-nine frames come back to the table.

An editing partner is a helper who wasn't at the shoot, has no memories, and can look at the frames freshly even while knowing the concept statement. It can be a photography friend, a teacher or a careful reader who doesn't do photography. The partner's task isn't to make the selection, but to show the photographer's blind spot by saying "these two frames say the same thing" or "I didn't understand why you kept this frame"; the final decision is still the photographer's.

A selection also decides whom a series shows. The frames of a dark-skinned person shot in a dark interior can be quietly eliminated in the first technical round because they aren't well exposed, and the series can turn, in a way the photographer didn't want, into a series showing only light-skinned people. Looking at the final selection and asking who remained, who dropped out and why they dropped out; and, if the reason is exposure, considering reshooting the person instead of removing them from the series, keeps the selection honest.

Visual evidence

Your friend lays the twenty-nine frames out on the floor again and first writes the target number: twelve. In the technical round seven frames come out; but three of those that come out are frames of the dark-skinned tea-stall keeper they photographed in a dim tea stall in the evening. All are underexposed, the face lost in shadow. Instead of moving the frames to the pool, the next morning they go back to the stall and reshoot the same man in window light, metering his face.

In the idea round they put every frame next to the concept statement and come down to fifteen frames. An old classmate they call in as editing partner immediately notices that the three frames showing the craftsperson's hand say the same thing. Your friend tries to write a role statement for all three and sees the sentence comes out the same every time; they put two in the pool.

In the last round thirteen frames remain. The frame showing the sunrise, the one liked most on its own, doesn't fit the series' calm and close tone; they can't write a role statement for it and move it to the pool. Under each of the remaining twelve frames there is a sentence; the tea-stall keeper's new portrait is among them, his face readable.

Common mistakes

Summary

Choosing is hard because of the memory getting mixed in, a frame strong on its own not fitting the series, and the fear of losing, and a selection isn't collecting individually good frames, but building a whole that serves an idea and a number. A target frame count set in advance, editing rounds that each ask a single question, a role statement written for every frame, a holding pool instead of deleting, and an editing partner who wasn't at the shoot make the decision easier; who remains in the final selection, and whether dark-skinned people have dropped out of the series because of bad exposure, is looked at separately.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will make a twelve-frame selection from a project.

1. Gather at least fifty frames from a project or from your shoots of recent months, and write the series' concept statement.
2. Set the target number at twelve and put the frames through three editing rounds: technical, idea and series; in each round ask only that round's question.
3. Write a role statement under every remaining frame; put any frame for which no sentence can be written, or that gets the same sentence as another frame, in the holding pool.
4. Show the selection to an editing partner. Then count who appears in the final twelve frames; look at the skin tone of the people eliminated in the technical round and the reason they were eliminated, and reshoot if needed.

Check yourself

• Were you able to come down to twelve frames without raising the number?
• Is the role statement of every remaining frame different?
• Can you explain whom the final selection shows, and who dropped out and why?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. Which is the most suitable decision for a frame that is very strong on its own but doesn't fit the series' tone?

• A) Rebuilding the series from the start around that frame
• B) Deleting the frame
• C) Putting the frame in the middle of the series
• D) Moving the frame to the holding pool if no role statement can be written for it

2. What is the benefit of asking only one question in each editing round?

• A) Preventing the fatigue of weighing all the criteria at once
• B) Keeping more frames
• C) Lengthening the editing time
• D) Making an editing partner unnecessary

3. What does it show if the same role statement is written for two frames?

• A) That both should stay in the series
• B) That the target number should be raised
• C) That one of them is extra
• D) That both should be deleted

4. If all the frames of a dark-skinned person were eliminated in the technical round because of underexposure, what is done?

• A) Leaving the series as it is
• B) Checking whether the person appears in the series and, if needed, reshooting them with correct exposure
• C) Raising the brightness of the frames and putting all of them in the series
• D) Removing all the people from the series

Answers

1. D — A frame strong on its own doesn't have to go into every series; it can wait in the pool for another job.
2. A — A single question simplifies the decision and allows comparison by the same criterion in each round.
3. C — Two frames doing the same job create repetition in the series; one is enough.
4. B — Bad exposure shouldn't cause a person to quietly drop out of the series; reshooting keeps the selection honest.

Summary card

• First write the target number.
• A single question in each round: technical, idea, series.
• A role statement for every frame; the same sentence can't be written twice.
• Don't delete, move to the holding pool.
• In the final selection, who remained, and who dropped out and why?

Bridge to the next lesson

Twelve frames have been chosen, and under each of them there is a sentence. Your friend wants to gather them in a book; but when the work turns from twelve files in a folder into an object held in the hand whose pages are turned, new questions arise. Which frame will fall on the right page, which on the left? Should two frames stand facing each other, or should one stay alone beside an empty page? On what paper should the book be printed, and what size should it be? How do you put together a photobook? The next lesson takes up sequencing, page rhythm, paper and design.