The negative is the score

A famous Ansel Adams quote which brings solace to photographers is “the negative is the score, the print is the performance.” Ansel was an accomplished concert pianist in addition to being a preeminent photographer, and in my teaching I stress this quote often… what we capture in the camera is only the starting point of our work.

This past weekend I taught a portrait photography workshop at the Cape Cod Art Center School of Visual Art. Saturday was theory, history, posing, lighting, and hands-on photographing, while Sunday was devoted to post-processing portraits in Lightroom and Photoshop. To demonstrate the importance of post-processing I used an example from a model shoot from a dozen years ago at the late, great, Washington School of Photography. While the “negative” straight out of camera was competent (ie, properly exposed), it lacked much “pop,” thus calling for a “performance.” The result is as follows:

The Performance: cool the white balance, soften skin, increase contrast in clothing, make eyes pop, make eyes the same size, slight vignette. The tools we have at our disposal in 2025 far surpass what was possible in 2013, and I can only imagine how much better our performances will be in the years ahead.