While researching “Beyond Chimping,” an article for AfterCapture about how to avoid some of the pitfalls inherent in making the transition to digital, I had a great chat with Stewart Cohen, a highly successful commercial photographer based in Dallas, Texas. Cohen told me that he personally edits every single image he shoots, frame by frame, slowly and meticulously—even though he has a large, capable staff he could call on for help. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cohen is a great artist and a savvy businessman who’s always willing to share his wealth of knowledge. “Beyond Chimping” included a number of sound tips from Cohen as well as other photographers. But it was Cohen’s slow, frame-by-frame editing advice that struck me as both amazingly valuable and elegantly simple. It’s a practice, I believe, that many of us would do well to head with Cohen’s degree of meticulousness.

Cohen mentioned that photographers are shooting more images than ever before simply because they can, because it’s cheap. “The pain is in the editing and archiving,” he said. “There are so many more images to pore through.” But pour through he does.

Cohen explained that the editing process is critical for all photographers, not just digital photographers trying to improve or reclaim their vision. “I find that when I do not do my own edits, I do not grow,” Cohen said, adding, “Everyone approaches editing differently, but I look at every shot slowly and consciously.”

The frame-by-frame approach sounds simple enough, but the way Cohen elaborated on the point made it to really sink in. He said that the ability to shoot more because of digital is exciting. But he noted that, when combined with modern editing software, it comes with the downside of seducing photographers into zipping though their editing process too quickly, and not truly, carefully evaluating both great images and stinkers alike.

Taking the time to examine images and consciously figure out exactly what makes one image better than another—artistically, technically, emotionally—is at the very foundation of the photographic process. And now that our monitors are filled with hundreds of images that often look almost identical—at least at first glance—this process is more important than ever before.

In the era of electronic imaging, in which each day heralds new technological advances, new photographic tools and new imaging techniques, it was refreshing to talk with Stewart Cohen about his process as an artist. He reminded me that no technological advances can ever alter what has always been the photographer’s most powerful tool: the simple practice of looking carefully and passionately at out work.

Tags: Editing, Editing Strategies, Stewart Cohen, “Beyond Chimping"