I had no clue what I was getting into when creating a magazine with my friend Don, but along the way I had to pick up multiple skills in order to do things right, and one of the best ones is editing and sequencing. Here I will outline point by point how I edit and sequence images for the magazine and how to do the same for your own stuff.
A) Introduction
So, first things first, this is how I edit and sequence images, so I can’t speak for anyone else, yeah? Also please understand that explaining my train of thought is hard because sometimes I do one of the points before or maybe at the same time as the time I describe below. That being out of the way let’s get going.
Who needs editing anyway?
Let’s get the big questions out of the way first, yeah? Why does someone has to edit and sequence their images?, can’t they just put them in a pile and that’s it? Well the obvious reason is that everything is going to look better when edited and sequenced than if it’s not …and every photographer wants to look their best, no?
But going deeper, edited selections look better because of selective exposure: The viewer is going to pass judgment on the photographer only based on the images they are exposed to. So in a sense you can look better depending on what you show. I’d dare say after my edits some photographers look much, much better than they actually are in reality.
Sequenced selections look better because the brain loves coherence, that’s why music works! I mean just look at any room, the one that is coherently cleaned (shoes with shoes, cds with cds, etc) automatically gets favored and that also woks for images.
Editing your own work
It is easier to edit someone else’s work than our own because we cannot fully divorce ourselves from our own images. It’s the curse of knowledge, we operate as if someone has the same previous experience as we did and judge our photographs with that in mind. Say you spent 3 days climbing a mountain, all your partners are dead trying to get to the top and you took a shot at the peak, who do you think can convince you that this picture you made isn’t that great?
You can to a certain point edit your own work, when I send some edits, they are always about 80% my own. But there are some images that go below the radar or are overestimated. You can’t fully trust your own judgment, there is wisdom in numbers! So get a partner you trust to help you out. For example, being from Haiti myself, people transporting stuff on their head is extremely natural to me, but not to alien eyes as my friend pointed out, making this image more interesting than I saw:
Always keep intent in mind
When editing, your intention, what you want to say in your work must always be in the back of your mind. Because you can have multiple perfectly good edits, but one must be chosen over the other because of your intent. Sometimes a very good image just won’t make sense in a particular edit because it doesn’t show your intention very well.
B) How I edit an sequence images
1) Establish the boundaries
At first the amount of images might seem dauting so the first thing to do is to create some boundaries. Right off the bat when I look at a series of images the first thing I look for is the strongest images in the bunch (while doing a first pass look) and then I hone on three and mentally label them B-M-E. That stands for Beginning, Middle and End.
I then cycle 2-3 more times the images so that I can make sure that the three selected are very strong. Why do they need to be in the beginning, middle and end? Well here’s my reasoning:
> First image needs to be strong because it needs to grab the attention, telling the viewer there’s some GOOD stuff inside.
> Middle image needs to be strong because I expect lost of interest in the middle of the selection (it doesn’t mean the other stuff is bad or anything, it’s just how we are as humans, attention drops quickly) so it needs to reinvigorate the energy
> Last image needs to needs strong because of the recency bias, it’s a cognotive bias where we judge things based on recent experience, and in this case, it’s the last image.
I tend to see BME like a three meal course, the appetizer, main dish and desert. The rule of thumb in editing is a selection of 12 images but if there’s more images allowed, there might be more “Middles” needed, just like the larger the tent, the more spikes needed.
Again, it’s not that the images in between are bad, I’m using them to support the others, sometimes it’s a necessity (where there is a real gap between the images), sometimes not (when most images are good).
2) Remove too similar images
After honing on my 3 main images, what I do is scan the images for images that look way too much like each other or that do not add any new information to the image selection. Then I have to ask which one is stronger and which one makes sense in the edit.
Say if I wanted to show haitians as brave I would take the image on the right, of I wanted to show haitians in a more depressive light I would chose the image on the left. There’s only 3 times where photographers have control: At the time of exposure, at post processing and at editing/sequencing, in all these times, the photographer can influence the viewer.
3) Establish the scene
Right after chosing B-M-E, the first thing I do is get scenes out of the way and put them right after Beginning. Because while you take where you live and shoot for granted, the viewer visually has no idea where you are from, so what I do is provide context to the subsequent images right after catching the attention with B.
There is usually an abrupt shift between B and the scene setting that follows but it’s a necessity, usually the scene setting image is not strong enough or interesting enough to be by itself. If it can, then I can use it both as the beginning image and the image that provides the context.
4) Sequencing
Now it’s finally time to sequence! It happens in 3 broad strokes: Deconstruct the image into categories, find the patterns (threads) and order accordingly. When I get images to sequence usually it’s all over: they were shot on multiple locations, multiple styles, edited differently, etc. What I do is look at everything in a thumbnail view and try to analyze each image and find what they are composed of. Here’s what I mean:
I do this for each image (once you do this enough times, you can do it in a matter of seconds per image) and since the brain is hardwired to find patterns, some common threads are going to pop up from the images and slowly but surely you will have a sense of this image will fit with another. Here’s an obvious example:
These images are of course very similar so they will look good together, the thing they do not share is the large oblique of the first image (from top right to bottom left), but it can be argued it still has a soft oblique in the image to the right, the boat aligns to the top right of the frame and the man’s head gently compliments the oblique, but it’s not as striking as the first image in my humble opinion.
Then it’s of course a matter of finding more and more common links between the images:
Generally here’s what I find in terms of links
> Location link
Images that have the same broad location in mind look good together. Say a guy that is sleeping on the sand and a shot of someone at the beach, I would put them together.
> Time link
Images that have the same subject but at different time, for example a shot of bicycle midday and another at night, I would put them together the night after the day
> Numerical link
If I see a progression in numbers, I will put the images in sequence. In the left, you have one person with something on their head, and in the second you have 2. It can be crescendo or the opposite.
> Visual weight link
If I see a visual weight progression, like people getting bigger and bigger or the opposite. In the images above, I would put the lady first because she is smaller in the frame than the guy and they are about the same place in the frame.
> Aspect ratio / orientation link
If I see horizontals and verticals, or photos of different aspect ratio, I would try to group them together.
> Color link
Images that have a similar color look better together. While there’s many color schemes, I find sticking to monochromatic works best where available. I tend to sequence according to the color wheel (In depth color wheel discussion all the way back in issue 5!).
> Recurring Theme
Put the broad themes together, like close up portraits, street scenes, umbrellas, rain, etc. If I can’t find a theme, I go one step above and look for broader themes. So if I don’t have 2 cat images, I will put a cat image and a dog image together because they are both animals.
> Post Processing link
Images with the same style of post processing look better together
> Overall composition link
Images with the same overall composition look better together, like figure in landscape, same perspective, etc.
Link Priorities
After having divided the images in multiple categories (this image has a: cat, is in: color, evoques the mood: sad, etc) I try to rate the category in terms of strength. Say I have to images of cats, One is a shot of a cat with it’s ball, the other one is mainly the portrait of a person with a cat in the back. The first image’s cat value is high, the second one not so much. The second image’s person portrait value is high, the first one not so much.
If worse comes to worse I will put these two images together (they feature cats), but my priority for the first image would be to find another cat image, and for the second one to find another portrait. It all depends on the images at hand, but there are threads within the images that take over the other depending on how prominent they are. Basically each image has linking potentials, and some links are stronger than others depending on the image
Example
I know things can get confusing, here’s an example of a selection:
Here’s my tought process:
– They all have shadow, so I put all of them together
– I find the image on the complete left and the one of the two kids have mainly 2 people in it, the one on the left have one
– The image of the complete left, the people in it are bigger and overall it’s more crowded so I put it before
– I’m done with the image with 2 people now I am looking at the shots of single people
– I’m putting the more crowded one first because I already started that pattern before: crowded then non crowded
Transitional images
While you can find some links between a group of images, these groups might not relate to each other, that’s why it’s very important to find transitional images, here’s an example:
In a sense one has to think like a filmmaker. If you are shooting a scene of someone in LA, you can’t just cut and bang they are in China or something, there needs to be a transition shot, usually the shot of a plane. It’s the same for photography, in the selection above I would like to go from showing some images shot on solid ground and some shots made on a small boat.
So I put in a transition shot, a shot that has both land and boat. What if there is no transition shot? Well I always try to find the strongest relating image and put it there.
Time to drop some images
As a photographer, I know I am attached to my images, but sometimes the reality is the image just doesn’t fit in the current selection, so sometimes some images need to be dropped. Again, not that the image is bad, but if it doesn’t fit, keep it somewhere safe to be used in a selection where it fits. It’s actually like that that one can find some new project!
Break the rules when appropriate
I usually stick to the like images with like images rule, but there is occasionally time where you actually do not want smooth transition between the images. The best example I can give you is one sequence I did for issue 14. Cover boy Neeko’s life and therefore images are not smooth in transition, here’s what I mean.
He is in the army (rough/tough/gritty) he is married (sweet/beautiful) and has kids (soft/cute), his reality is that he jumps from one life to another abruptly. He faces the reality of being an army man and the next moment the reality of being married and being a father and I wanted to contrast this in the images. Like this:
These are following pages. In one page you have a Hummer, it’s the sand, it’s gritty. Right after what do we find? His daughter in her toy car. There’s a car thread but the images thematically couldn’t be further apart and that’s the visual representation of his life. Break the rules when is needed!
Ending on ambiguity
In my edits, I always try to end on an ambiguous image, I always go for the open ended image, especially images that feature skies and open spaces. I do that in order not to give the viewer’s brain closure. Nothing is like an open loop to keep the brain wanting for more, it’s like giving it a puzzle without giving the solution, it’s going to obsess over it. If I can’t find an ambiguous image, I will try to see if a transitional image to feature at the end, so that it’s telling the viewer’s that there’s more where that came from.
Visual flow
How do I know the edit has been successful? Well what I do is look at all the images in thumbnails and look at each one of them trying to find a certain flow. If I see I can go trough all the images and all seem to fit, I move on. If there’s something I feel that is not right, I’ll change the images around. It’s a bit of a cop-out, but you know when you have a good edit when you see it, it’s in your gut feeling. And remember there can be multiple great edits possible.
Conclusion
Now you have my editing and sequencing flow. What I do is simply set the boundaries, remove images that are too similar, then I deconstruct the images and make notes of their attributes and find the similar threads between all of them and group them together. While it is possible to edit one’s own work, we must always keep in mind our blind spots and it’s always wise to check with a trusted friend.
Once you get the ball rolling, you will be able to see the patterns within the images in no time. How do you edit and sequence your images? Be yourself, stay focused and keep on shooting.