Magnum Contact Sheets

Product Information

Often, just one or two photos from a roll are chosen for publication, if that; the rest never see the light of day. Its value there may yet prove even greater than its original workaday function; an enduringly accessible record of what and how photographers saw for nearly a century. this book lays bare the creative methods, strategies and editing processes behind some of the world's most iconic images. I may not be watching the photographer actually taking the photographs but, where a photograph can lie, I would argue that a contact sheet does not. The contact sheet shows a series of 5 or 6 photos on the same roll with the Teddy Boy at various stages of carrying out this action.

For anyone with a deep appreciation of photography and a desire to understand what goes into creating iconic work, Magnum Contact Sheets will be regarded as the definitive volume.Further insight into each contact sheet is provided by texts written by the photographers themselves or by experts chosen by members’ estates. This landmark book, published just as the shift to digital photography threatens to render the contact sheet obsolete, celebrates the sheet as artifact, as personal and historic record, as invaluable editing tool, and as a fascinating way of accompanying great photographers as they work towards, and capture, the most enduring images of our time. But just in case, Magnum Photos, founded in Paris in 1947, is one of the world’s most famous photo agencies. As a side note, what has surprised me is how well these old negs have scanned, some (but obviously not all) look like they could have been taken yesterday - the glory of film!

The average 35mmc reader perhaps needs no introduction either to Magnum, or to the concept of contact sheets. If you are sitting on the fence about purchasing this book, or picking it off the shelf, like me, I heartily recommend you do. When you consider that the majority of this book is full pages of contact sheets or enlargements of individual images then it really isn’t so scary. Of course that could change, these things tend to evolve with time but in this moment, this is how I feel. an amazing time capsule of photographic thought: a compelling journey through the picture-taking process.The book also has reproductions of notebook pages of other photographers, along with magazine clippings, press cards, letters and other ephemera. Looking at the contact sheets made me feel like I was walking with the photographer as they shot the subject.

I have been exploring this book regularly over the past month and find that the biographical details and illuminating notes on the individual photographers work featured to be consistently rewarding. This book is a fantastic look into the world of some of the most incredible photographers there has ever been - some of the most amazing photographs ever taken, a true insight into the photographers' processes of creating an image, set-aside the wonderful, and sometimes touching, stories behind the photos themselves. The entries are organised into seven chronological sections, starting with 1930–49 and ending with 2000–10.Its amusing to me that Contact sheets are now available as stand alone works of art, even I have enlarged a contact sheet to display as “art” a kind of mini movie of 36 frames. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. No matter what level of photographer you are, your age or your genre of photography, I would urge you to get this book .