As someone who is terrible at editing my own work I feel awe inspired thinking about the time Robert Frank spent shooting “The Americans” versus the time spent editing.
Mr. Frank spent parts of 1955 and 1956 making 27,000 photos… and that’s not the crazy part! According to Jeff Rosenheim, curator of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Photographs, “Robert was very patient and he spent many, many months, maybe a year, working through the 27,000 frames to select the 1,000 to print, to select the 100 to edit down from, to get 83 in the book.” (You can hear him talking with Robert Frank here on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate show from September 2009.)
He spent a year shooting and a year editing. Simply amazing, editing for that long. I can’t even begin to comprehend it. Like most photographers I yearn to get out on the open road for a good amount of time. I’m not sure whether I yearn to spend a year looking at the results but perhaps I need to re-entrench myself in the editing process. The giant coast-to-coast road trip isn’t going to happen anytime soon though, so to take my mind off that somewhat bummerific thought I asked author, Jeffrey Rotter, whose book “The Unknown Knowns” just came out in a paperback edition, about editing. “I can’t speak for authors everywhere, but I think an author has to be a good editor of his/her own work — that’s 90 percent of the job. My ability to self-edit is limited. I can’t get enough distance from a work to see all the flaws or opportunities that a good editor will. Especially broad structural things: Is the story arc working? Have I explained enough or too much? Is the voice or tone consistent from start to finish? Does it engage the reader throughout? Are the characters believable? Is it a steaming pile of crap? I would never consider publishing something without a thorough outside edit or three. Maybe there is a writer somewhere who wouldn’t benefit from this, but I’d doubt it.”
When I was Associate Art Director at American PHOTO Magazine we constantly complained about how terrible photographers were at editing their own work. I somehow thought knowledge of this deficiency would work as an amulet against this problem when I became a photographer. No dice man. I’m left wondering if Mr. Rotter’s book editor is good with images or who among Mr. Frank’s circle of friends saw the work and helped in editing it. Maybe those people want to come over the next time I’m in the heat of the edit.
The parting shot from Mr. Rosenheim: “Few photographers today have the luxury of time, or are willing to give themselves that freedom.” Luxury AND freedom… I want to combine you and make you my friend!
(You can see Mr. Rotter’s amazing book video here.)
ps The title, Photographers are Their Own Worst Editors, obviously refers to me and some people that got play in American PHOTO. Not Mr. Frank who seems damn good at it.