A Physician can bury his mistakes,
an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
Frank Lloyd Wright
It’s easy to see artists as perfect, because the works you see — especially the works from commercially very successful artists — are only the refined and selected ‘best works’. You do not see the sketches, the mishaps, the blunders — or even all the slight variations that dot the way to each successful artwork.
So it’s nice to see that Slate shows “Contact Sheets” today as a topic, allowing you to have a look at the contact sheets photographers made and the pictures that were finally selected. And some of them are classic photographs most people would recognize.
If you ever wondered whether you are the only one who has to go through hundred of photos to get the one exceptional one, don’t despair. Whereas professional and well-known photographers might produce less “trash-bin material”, many of their brilliant photos were that one exceptional photo in a row. That is was there is exceptional enough.
