Ansel Adams, a classical pianist as well as renowned photographer, compared the photographic negative to a musical score that can be interpreted/printed in numerous ways. John Cage, the avant-garde composer, compiled scores by numerous composers and artists and presented them as graphic art in the 1969 publication Notations. It is the merging of these two ideas, from these unlikely sources, that form the foundation for this project. Since 2006, coinciding with Richard Misrach’s shift away from analog film to working exclusively with a digital camera, he has been interested in the negative image in photography as an aesthetic experience in its own right. This body of work, this book, is an homage to the end of the analog era in photography. –the publisher
