this is not a dictionary or an encyclopedia
these are all the photos I took last year
two very thick volumes
some 700 pages
almost 14,000 photographs
these are my 2022 contact sheets
in this video, we'll talk about why I made these
how they help me improve as a photographer
why you might want to do the same
and how you can make them yourself
so let's do it
2022 was an awesome year for my photography
I had the privilege to photograph beautiful locations
and I took thousands and thousands of pictures
many of them are already gone, though
many more will have to go very soon
because they are taking space, not only in my hard drive
but also mentally every time I have to scroll through all my catalog to
find a good photographs among the bad ones
at the same time, I feel like I'm losing something when I delete a photo
it's like I'm getting rid of an important part of the journey
I take a lot of photos, but I believe that every single photo is important
every time we click the shutter, we become slightly better photographers
the photographs we take also tell a story, our story
and sometimes, the way we got there, the path we took...
is more beautiful than the destination itself
I didn't want to lose that
I wanted to keep it, somehow
and at the same time, I didn't want the clutter that came from
having to manage thousands and thousands of images
how can we marry both?
well, enter contact sheets
the basic idea behind a contact sheet is to print a bunch of photographs
in the same order we took them
on a single piece of paper
of course, contact sheets originated back in the film era
they were made by placing the negatives directly on the paper
that's where the name comes from
"contact"
because the negatives and the paper were in contact
and the result was a positive version of a roll of film
back then, they were really useful
because they were the best way to look at all the photographs in a roll of film
and decide which ones were worth printing, and which ones weren't
that's not something we really need today, though, with digital photography
we can review our photographs almost anywhere
not only just on the computer
but we can also use phones
or even the screen on the camera
but there is a reason why contact sheets are still very useful in today's digital world
that is because they show the thought process, the sequence of shots that led to the final image
you see, I'm a big advocate of shooting a lot and shoot often
I think that's the best way to learn
we master our camera gear when we shoot a lot
we learn about composition, about different lighting conditions
there are many other lessons to be learned from shooting a lot
but in order to do that, we have to take a step back, to zoom out
and that's of course, contact sheets
looking at our work as a whole instead of individual pictures can be very revealing
we might find patterns
perhaps we'll see that we tend to go for wide angle shots, and not as many detailed shots
or the opposite, maybe we tend to use longer focal lengths while neglecting the wider are angles
looking at a lot of pictures over a long period of time
we might realize that we do not shoot a variety of subjects
or that we shoot too many of them
as I said, contact sheets can be very revealing
not only to ourselves, but to others as well
these printed versions are just for me, to keep on the the shelf
but I share a digital version of these contact sheets over my patreon page
I upload a monthly PDF with all the images that I take that month
and at the end of the year, it's just a matter of putting all of
those PDFs together and send them to the printer
if you want to take a closer look at the work I did in 2022
at the work that I'm doing in 2023
and support my photography in the process then
please follow the link in the description down below
I've been doing contact sheets for a while now
let me... let me show you
I just have to go through my old film stuff
but I should have something to show you over here
oh, I found one
I have a bunch of them, but this one will do
let's see what we can find here
by the way, these are the copies I have left of "ONE"
some 20 or so
now, I'm shipping them to some countries, some selected countries
please check it out, the link is gonna be in the description down
below as well just in case you want your own copy
I haven't opened these folders in a long time
but they are all the rolls of film I shot years and years ago
with this beauty, by the way
it's still here
and I found a roll of HP5, so I am very tempted
but I don't even have chemicals or anything to develop them here at home
I don't know, I don't know
anyway, let's go back to the contact sheets
oh, this one is a cool one
they are photos from the total solar eclipse that happened in Oregon...
well, I guess in more parts of the world, but I saw it from there in 2017, August of 2017
but you can't really make much of these negatives
they are harder to look at than positive prints, than positive photographs
I'm afraid I got rid of them because I can't find any
but the plastic sleeve is still sticky
it's sticky because I used to print contact sheets and tape them on front of those rolls
so I knew the images that were there
that was pretty useful when it came to finding an image in those big folders
but that was about it
those contact sheets didn't give me and they don't give me today any more information
they don't show the whole sequence, the whole thought process that led me to take a photo
because back then, and today is even worse...
shooting with that medium format film camera was really expensive
every shot cost me around $1
so I was very, very picky
I was not shooting 20-30 shots of the same tree, but maybe 2-3
there is nothing wrong with that approach, of course
I was still going through the same thought process that led me to the
final composition, to the image that I liked
but it never got captured
because most of the photographs I was taking were mental photographs
so that process is lost now
with my digital camera, however, I don't spare any shots
especially when I'm photographing wildlife,
when the weather is very bad, or when the light is fading away
now, that doesn't mean that I click the shutter for the sake of clicking it
every time I take a photo, I'm trying to capture a feeling that I had in the field
and those feelings are worth keeping, I believe
that is what I'm trying to do with these contact sheets
to have a printed record of all of those feelings,
all of those images that I felt I should capture in the field
with no regards to their quality, or to their compositional merits
in fact, most of the images in these books are bad, they just don't work
but really, it's only when you take them all together that you
can see the whole story behind my photography
they show me something that I don't see when I look at individual photographs from years ago
how I wish I had started doing this much earlier, years ago
and that's why I wanted to share this with you
because this might be something you want to try yourself, to keep a record of your journey
and something that if you don't do, you might regret in the future
it's also a good way to give yourself permission
to let go of all of those images that you've been holding onto for so long
because you weren't afraid of deleting them and losing those feelings that you had
this might do that for you
all right, so I'm gonna show you how I make these contact sheets
this is the easiest way I found to make them using the software that I already use
but of course, there are plenty of different ways that you can get to the same result
in fact, I believe that Adobe Lightroom Classic has this feature built in
but I use the newer Adobe Lightroom, this one
so the process is a little bit more manual, but it's still pretty easy as you'll see
the first thing is of course to choose a specific date
I am choosing February 27th, I was here in Indiana
I want to make sure that all the images look the way they are supposed to look like
as you know, my photography is mostly square and black and white
that's how I take the photos in the field, with that in mind
but the raw files are in color
and with my a7r II the raw files don't show up as square photographs, they show up as 3x2
so the first thing I do is to convert word all of
those photos to monochrome and to crop them to square
here, all the photos already look good
so I want to make sure that they are ordered by capture date
I select them all using "command + A"
or we can also click on the first one, then hold the "shift" key, and click on the last one
we go to "export", we select "custom settings"
here we select "full size", and we select "custom name"
now, this is very important if you shoot with different cameras like I do
I use my full frame cameras, but also more compact cameras
all of them have a different file names for the photos
so by renaming them here, we make sure that they are going to be in the right order in the sequence
so Adobe Photoshop knows how to process them
so the first image that we took on a day is going to be the first one to show up
and the last one that we took is going to be the last one we took that day
let's export all of those images there
and indeed, Adobe Photoshop is the next tool we
are going to use to create the actual contact sheets
to do that we go to "File -> Automate -> Contact Sheet II"
here, we choose a folder
in this case, this is where we exported them all
Lightroom is still working on it but we are gonna go ahead
we're not gonna wait for it
here, we can choose a lot of different settings
these are the ones I like, feel free to copy them
but basically, the most important ones are "columns" and "rows"
because that is the amount of photos that we want to show in just one single sheet
the size of the paper, of course
I have "grayscale", because my photos are in monochrome
we press "OK"
it's gonna take a while
not too long hopefully, because we don't have as many images in that folder just yet
but if you have a lot of images from one day this might take a little bit
all right, so we got two sheets completed
there were more images but I didn't give Lightroom enough time to finish processing them
but that's all right, this is all I need to show you how to make them
once we have all the images in one sheet, we have to export them
we go to "File -> Export -> Export As"
I do JPEG but you can do whatever format you want, they are all fine
I choose 6,000 pixels wide
this is totally overkill for this use case, but...
now, we export the final sheet and we can close it and move on to the next one
now, we have these two files with all the photos I took on February 27th
as you can see, they are in the right order, from first to last I took that day
now what I use is a simple word processor to put them all together
in this case, Pages
I call this document "Imports", but you can call it whatever you want, "contact sheets", whatever
this is for the month of February
I can add January 27th
I think it was Thursday
I add this little information with the date and the location so I don't forget about that
and then I just need to add those contact sheets one by one
I change the size to 6 inches wide
and using these rulers or whatever they are from Pages
I place the contact sheet in the dead center
I do the same for the next one here
again, 6 inches
and to the center of the sheet
and that's pretty much it
it's a little bit time consuming, especially if you have a lot of photos
but it's a very, very straightforward process
I wish I had started doing this much earlier
I would love to have books this thick with all the photos that I took in, say, 2017, 2018
but I don't have them
all I have left now are scattered photographs that tell parts of the story but not the whole thing
that's why I want to encourage you to try this,
to give it a try even if you're not totally convinced just yet
it does take a bit of work but if you do it little by little
once a week, every couple of weeks
just don't wait until you have hundreds of images
because then it will feel overwhelming
but if you do that, at the end of the year you'll end up with a volume like this
or even thicker than these ones
with all the photos that you took
it will be your very own story, your very own adventure in images
yours to keep forever
I had my doubts last year, when I was working on these contact sheets
but now that I have the final result, the two volumes, I couldn't be happier
it's a different way to look at our work, from a much higher perspective
to take the big picture in
to forget about those individual images, individual outings
and see our photography as a whole
but you might already be doing this yourself, or something very similar
I would love to hear from you in the comments down below
or if you have any questions, please leave a comment and I'll get back to you
for now, this is all I hope the video was helpful and it inspires you to try this
give it a try, give it a try
thank you so much for watching and see you in the next one!