Environmentalists fear for the region's future due to the toxic rocket fuel. Villagers collecting scrap from a crashed spacecraft, surrounded by thousands of white butterflies. Veiled women practice shooting on the outskirts of the city. With the development of digital technologies and their huge impact on photographic production, this exploration of the analogue editing process sets out to both investigate and celebrate an approach that is becoming increasingly historic an ‘epitaph’ in the words of Martin Parr. Often compared to an artist’s sketchbook, the contact sheet is the photographer’s first look at what he or she has captured a sense of walking alongside that photographer and seeing through their eyes. Magnum Contact Sheets sets out to illustrate the traditional role of the contact sheet within Magnum’s working archive, as the main source of reference for the picture agency’s editors. This exciting new exhibition will give audiences remarkable access and insight into the decision-making processes of many of Magnum’s famous members, through the inclusion of first-person accounts. In the early days of Magnum’s inception, founding member Henri Cartier-Bresson famously used contact sheets as a means of critiquing the younger members work. The show is taking the contact sheet as the basis for an exploration into the creative process behind some of the world’s most iconic photographs from the Magnum Photos agency. Magnum Contact Sheets is a major new touring exhibition produced by Magnum Photos in collaboration with Forte di Bard, where the show was presented for the first time in June 2013 before touring worldwide. Magnum Contact Sheets “Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.”

Magnum contact sheets book