Magnum Contact Sheets

Product Information

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. 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. Then, you could imagine them in the office or lab peering over the sheets with a loupe and china marker, talking over the selection with a colleague or editor.

The contact sheets are mostly from black and white negatives like the one shown below, but we also get some colour negatives (like Jonas Bendiksen’s magic-realist Satellites) and transparencies (like Stuart Franklin’s iconic images of Tiananmen Square). 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.You'll flip the pages and read the details and you will "get it" and be happy you digested this brick of a book. I think I have got more out of these reflections, and from careful perusal of the contact sheets, than I have from many technical books about photography. The presentation and chosen scale allows for an experience close to viewing actual size contact sheets allowing the reader to view individual frames easily.

The average 35mmc reader perhaps needs no introduction either to Magnum, or to the concept of contact sheets. I'm still not certain, though, whether it's an argument in favour of motor drives and taking more frames, or the opposite. Further insight into each contact sheet is provided by texts written by the photographers themselves or by experts chosen by members’ estates.The book also has reproductions of notebook pages of other photographers, along with magazine clippings, press cards, letters and other ephemera.

They are all superb in their own way and there is a vast array of subjects throughout making it an incredibly interesting read. The book provides fascinating insight into the selection process and is accompanied by revealing anecdotes from the photographers. 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.I have the book and Holy and Sroyon have done us a service in their review, it is hefty and tells many stories. I’ve found the process of scanning my negatives and checking the full roll over a lightbox has massively improved my photographic knowledge. The negatives are printed not by enlargement, but by placing them directly on – in contact with – the paper.

This is why I don’t enjoy using point and shoot film cameras and why I love scrolling back on my phone to pictures of my children as tiny babies. And then Sroyon asked me if I would be up for a joint review and that was the kick up the backside to actually get it out.For those worried about the new edition lacking some of the content of the first book - have no fear. 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.