Everyone knows the adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words." But I look at "my" book, produced and finished by others, and I am forced to say this:

This book has one "picture" too many. What it really, really needed was one thousand words instead.

There are the two introductory statements by Fox executives (who, by the way, surely pulled from various Photo Archive memos I had written), and by Marty Scorsese. The politics of these choices aside, neither statement provided a theme or helpful way in for the reader. These were not really introductions, alas.

And so there are some disappointments of course. Here are some of mine:

• The cover of the book: logo of TCF.
A choice which I understand, but which I'm forced to see as a lost opportunity. An outstanding photography book deserves an outstanding photographic cover. Choosing one image would have been nearly impossible, but I would have liked to have seen any one of three candidates: Paul Newman, Butch Cassidy, Utah, by Jimmy Mitchell; June Lang, Chandu the Magician, by Anthony Ugrin; Dorothy Revier, The Black Camel, Anonymous. Ah well, The Corporation must speak.

• The overall visual movement/narrative of the images.
Now this is difficult, because there are so many wonderful pictures, presented and reproduced with decided beauty. But so often, a thread is drawn and a story begins to tell itself through chapters of photographs, only to collapse before the end.

You see things in the juxtaposition of images, look deeply into the images and see relationships through light, shape, geometry, gesture -- so many ways to find concurrence and challenge in the photographs. But as you are looking, and seeing, and making fresh connections, you also realize the author/editor behind the choices, always behind and before the images, and very, very often, that visual movement, that editorial storyteller lets you down. You will be well into a "chapter" that seems to cohere, have a theme (or several), or be related by darkness and light, and all of a sudden, you turn a page and see a collapse. The movement comes to a halt. The story can not progress. The experience of delight and wonder turns to confusion and disappointment. What a shame.

Perhaps there were simply not enough strong images to sustain whole chapters? Perhaps it was a case of too many cooks (archivists/editors/book producers)? Or perhaps it is simply a weakness in the book. For many, this will not prohibit enjoyment. But for me, knowing the majority of the photographs, and knowing the way the Archive works, and knowing the strength of Rob's and Miles' editorial eyes, it is a lost opportunity. These chapters could have been sewn up; instead they are beset by loose threads.

• The specific design structure, which borrows from a moving film, counting down to opening shot.
Each "chapter" of photographs is enclosed by the countdown. Thus, the first chapter is 9, the second is 8, the next is 7, and so on down to the "Start." Then come the book's "end credits" -- again, styled from the conceit of a motion picture's ending -- followed by a frame grab ("The End") of Man In A Grey Flannel Suit. This movie concept works graphically, and is subtle and clever, too. But I wish there had been a design and structure that echoed the material content of the book: its content is STILL photography. The stills, though nominally about the movies, are really about documenting moments and glances, light, the play of shadow, beauty in faces and in the natural world, as well as the production of movie plays. I am sorry that there wasn't more emphasis, of any kind, on the still man. The woman or man taking the photographs. It is that relationship that remains hidden in this book, and which I had hoped to "expose."

• Let me return to the first observation. The absence of a thousand words.
I had made preliminary notes for my essay before April of 2001. I was extremely excited by mid-April, because all of my reading and research had resulted in finally coming up with the theme for the essay. I began to call it "Exposures." I had worked with great focus until that time, but nothing seemed to "gel" until I had a central, organizing idea for the whole book. "Exposures," of all kinds, would be available in this photograph book.

I wrote several dense pages on the meanings of exposure that I wanted the book to explore. I also wrote excitedly to Schawn, trying to get together to talk about my idea. I was in good spirits and was in a kind of creative hotspot about it all. But I never did get to talk to Schawn or to Eric Himmel in detail because three weeks later I was eliminated from the project and from the whole job.

I reread the essay notes the other day. Boy, that would have been a great essay for this book, not only because I NEEDED to write that essay to communicate my interpretation of the work of the Photo Archive (the care of which I considered a moral, historical trust); but also because the book as it is LACKS exactly that kind of organizing, interpreting heart to help it all stick together. The book is like a great walking tour that would have been made outstanding with a thoughtful tour guide.

Among other things, a decent essay would have opened up an additional vast audience of book people, photography people, and culture vultures of all kinds. The book could have been a contender.