Making Contact

One of the things I miss about film photography is contact sheets. That might be the only thing I miss about film photography.

There was nothing like handing an editor a stack of contact sheets on which you’d already marked your favored photos, some with crop marks already applied. Sometimes, meetings would require several sets of contact sheets so more than one editor could scan for their favorites. This could also be a problem, as the editors got to see your failures and less-than-stellar photos.

Looking back, I can see my progress in trying to find a good photo of a death row inmate during an interview. He was stopping all appeals and wanted his sentence to be carried out.

He sat in a chair in a small room. He never stood up and never changed his expression. All I could do was look for a change in eye movement and study his hands and feet for additional details. I had little freedom of movement in the cramped space, which barely accommodated me, the reporter, and the prison guards.

I shot verticals and horizontals, close-ups and wide shots, creating as large a variety as possible.

Even with all this effort, I knew that because it was a wire service shoot, only two photos would be transmitted to the newspaper: one for the morning edition and one for the evening edition.

The emotional connection of watching an editor go over a contact sheet combined with the anticipated excitement of receiving a congratulatory note about the one frame you thought was best—or being asked if there was another contact sheet not yet seen.

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