An incredibly rare, exceedingly scarce book. Contacts by Collier Schorr was published by IDEA Books in 2015 in a limited edition of 100. The 108-page booklet returns to the material behind Jens F. (Steidl/MACK, 2005), shifting focus from the finished photograph to the process of editing, sequencing and image-making.

The work draws on Andrew Wyeth’s extended study of Helga, where a single subject is revisited over time. Schorr adopts a similar approach in her portrayal of Jens, a young German boy whose gradual transformation becomes the central thread. Using Wyeth’s The Helga Pictures almost as a working surface, she layers it with contact prints, annotations and sketches, foregrounding process over resolution and resisting the idea of the image as something fixed or complete.

The project later informed a collaboration with Comme des Garçons, where Schorr developed the imagery into a campaign that became closely associated with the brand.

“We can never say what is coming next. We do things right at the last minute. The Collier Schorr book was two weeks from first contact to sold out.”
— David Owen, speaking with Chris Black for Inventory Magazine