A shoot gives you hundreds of frames. A set is something else: the few that, placed in order, make a reader stay. The edit is the second photograph — the one that decides what the day was actually about.
I start by cutting anything that explains too much. A frame that needs a caption to land is usually a frame I can drop. The pictures that survive are the ones that hold on their own and still leave a question.
Pairs teach me more than singles. Two frames side by side create a third thing — a tension, a time jump, a change in light. I lay prints on a table and move them until the sequence breathes: open with breath, let the middle turn, close on a quiet line that lingers.
Fewer frames almost always win. A set of nine strong images reads as a statement; thirty reads as a contact sheet. Clients do not want a folder — they want a point of view, and a point of view is built by what you remove.
Order is craft, not housekeeping. The first image sets the contract with the viewer; the last image is what they carry home. Everything in between has to earn its place by either advancing the mood or punctuating it. Avedon understood this — his editorial sequences move like sentences, not catalogues.
When I am stuck, I remove the strongest single frame and read the set again. If it collapses without that picture, the sequence was leaning on a hero instead of building a story. I put the hero back only when the rest can stand beside it.
The edit is also where you protect the subject. A frame that flatters but lies does not belong. A frame that is honest and a little uncomfortable often does. Narrative over spectacle means trusting the reader to sit with the harder picture.