"Contact sheets should be as private as a toothbrush and ought to be guarded as jealously as a mistress. They should never be published; they should be seen only by one’s closest, benevolent associate when the photographer is stuck in a decision about which specific picture to use and cannot resolve it himself.
“A dozen contact sheets tell far more about a photographer than a dozen ‘good’ pictures taken by that same photographer. Two dozen contact sheets taken at random from various stories and carefully scrutinized would be equal to a complete (photographic) psychoanalysis of the photographer.
“Contact sheets reveal how one thinks and how one sees. They remove the mystery of how one gets to a finished picture. They are bad for our carefully cultivated mystique."
Elliott Erwitt (via Iconic Photos)
