This morning I started working through a beautiful collection of DVDs entitled Contacts. Each of the 10-minute films highlights a famous photographer narrating the process of his or her work. It is enlightening to see the instants that came before and after famous photographs. Each photographer navigates through proof sheets describing how the moment evolved, how the scene took life with only subtle changes.

William Klein makes a rather poignant assertion in the second film:

A picture is taken at 1/125th of a second. What do you know of a photographer’s work? 100 pictures? Let’s say 125. Well, that’s a body of work. That comes to, all told, one second. Let’s say more like, 250 photographs. That would be a rather large body of work – that would come out to two seconds. The life of a photographer, even of a great photographer as they say: two seconds.

I’m loving the series so far. Can’t recommend it enough.