The edit is a second shoot
I shoot for the day. I edit for the next twenty years.
Essay
Nov 9, 2025
7 min
Tuscany, Italy
A two-day editorial gives me three thousand frames. The gallery a client receives has around four hundred. The cut is where the story actually gets written.
Cutting for time
I look at every frame twice, a week apart. The first pass is about what happened. The second is about what will still matter when the couple shows these pictures to their children.
Colour comes last, and it stays quiet. Skin should look like skin. Evening should look like evening.
The first pass
The first pass is fast and honest. I flag anything that tells me what happened: the arrival, the vows, the aunt who cried before anyone else. Nothing is cut yet, it is just a map of the day.
Then I close the laptop for a week. Distance is the most underrated editing tool there is.
The second pass
On the second pass I am editing for the couple's grandchildren. Would this frame mean anything to someone who was not there? If not, it goes, however pretty it is.
I shoot for the day. I edit for the next twenty years.
Sony A7 IV
Tuscany, Italy
