The Art & Science of Editing: Revealing Meaning and Voice Through Curation

This session explores what carries over from established creative practice into generative workflows, including artistic judgment, authorship, editing, and visual thinking itself. Rather than focusing on tools alone, the conversation turns to enduring creative questions: How do we recognize coherence in an image? What decisions remain fundamentally human? When possibilities multiply, does judgment matter more, not less? Drawing on backgrounds in photography, art production, consulting, editing, and experimental practice, Beth Huerta and Liz Miller-Gershfeld approach the session as a live conversation rather than a lecture, using examples and audience participation to examine how creatives can engage emerging tools without abandoning the discernment, perspective, and values they already bring to their work.

How images are selected, sequenced, and presented fundamentally determines how photographic work is understood. This workshop explores the editorial process through collaborative exercises, group discussions, and live demonstrations.

In photography, editing is far more than selecting "successful" images. It is the process through which meaning, authorship, cohesion, and narrative emerge. Drawing from decades of experience working as an agent and editing for acclaimed photographic talent, as well as her work as an educator at Drexel University's College of Media Arts & Design, Beth Huerta examines the role of curation in shaping visual voice and defining the broader impact of a body of work. Through discussion, case studies, and professional insight, this lecture explores sequencing, audience, storytelling, and the inherent challenge of editing one's own work with sufficient distance and objectivity to assess it clearly. Participants will examine how editing shapes not only which images are seen, but ultimately how the work is interpreted, perceived, and remembered.