How I choose the frame that lasts

At a shoot I press the shutter hundreds of times. You see ten frames. Between those two numbers lies the one part of this craft you can't buy, can't automate and can't rush: the selection.

The shoot doesn't make the author. The selection does.

Many people think the photographer is the person with the camera. In fact, the photographer is the person who, the next day, sits in front of four hundred files and has the courage to close three hundred and ninety of them. That's where everything is decided. Not in the light of the shoot, but in the quiet that follows.

What I look for in a frame

I go through them quickly the first time, without thinking. I'm after the gut reaction - the frame that stops me a second longer. Not the most technically correct, not the one with the biggest smile. The one that's alive. Then I go back and check why it stopped me.

It's almost always the same thing: expression, light and moment land in the same frame, in the same fraction of a second. An eye that has just lit up. A hand caught mid-gesture. Light falling exactly where it should without being asked. When the three meet, the frame needs no explanation. It stands on its own.

Why I throw away 95%

The rest are correct. Well exposed, sharp, nothing to fault. And that's exactly why I don't keep them. A correct frame says nothing - it only confirms I was there. I don't sell proof that I showed up. I sell the moment worth remembering.

If I handed you everything, I'd be passing you work that was mine to do. You'd sit in front of four hundred files, get bored around the fiftieth, close the folder and never open it again. That's how most shoots die: not badly made, just never chosen.

The few that remain

The final selection is always smaller than anyone expects. And always stronger. Because every frame that survived passed through a single filter: a year from now, will this still matter?

The ones that pass end up on a wall, in an album, on someone's desk. The rest stay where they belong - in the bin of a day's good work. I throw away 95% without regret, so that you never have to look at something that wasn't worth keeping.