Magnum Contact Sheets

Presenting a remarkable selection of contact sheets and related material, Magnum Contact Sheets lays bare the creative methods, strategies and editing processes behind some of the world's most iconic images - was the final image a set-up, or a serendipitous encounter; did the photographer work to extract the potential from a situation, or was it the fabled 'decisive moment'?

Published just as the shift to digital photography threatens to render the contact sheet obsolete, this landmark book celebrates the sheet as artifact, as personal and historic record, as editing tool, and as a fascinating way of accompanying great photographers as they work towards, and capture, the most enduring images of our time.

139 contact sheets, containing over 3,600 frames, representing 69 photographers, are featured, as well as zoom-in details, selected photographs, press cards, notebooks and spreads from contemporary publications, including Life magazine and Picture Post. Insight into each contact sheet is provided in texts written by the photographers themselves or by experts chosen by members' estates.

Many acknowledged greats of photography are here, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt and Inge Morath, as well as Magnum's latest generation, Jonas Bendiksen, Alessandra Sanguinetti and Alec Soth among them. These photographers cover over seventy years of history, from the Normandy landings by Robert Capa, the Paris riots of 1968 by Bruno Barbey and war in Chechnya by Thomas Dworzak to images of Che Guevara by René Burri, Malcolm X by Eve Arnold and classic New Yorkers by Bruce Gilden.