What is a Contact Sheet?

Video Transcript

"So, I'm going to talk a little bit while we're in the light here rather than in the dark room about really just what a contact sheet is. A contact sheet is your negatives and you lay them on top of a piece of photographic paper in the dark room. And, then after the negatives are on top of the paper you're going to take a sheet of glass or a contact sheet printer. But, again the most affordable way is just to use a nice quarter inch thick sheet of glass. And, what you do is you lay it down on top of the paper. Light from the enlarger exposes, goes through your negatives and onto the paper. Really pretty simple. But, for some reason I don't know if it's the time factor thing. I found that when I begin doing this and a lot of my students just like to look at their negatives on a light table and print from them. And, I can't try to talk people out of that enough. When you look at the way you photograph on a contact sheet, you will see the rhythm of your photography. You'll actually see the way your eye looks. And, it's an amazing learning tool if you just keep making contact sheets and just looking at them that way."