- in Before & After by Tom Herod
The Cellist
People often ask why "The Cellist" doesn't look like a typical photograph. Some even mistake it for a drawing, painting, or watercolor. The truth is, I rarely connect with the images as they come straight out of the camera. They just don’t tell the story I want to tell, at least not in the way I want to tell it. My style is how I bring out the world as I see it—a reflection of the vision behind the lens.
The Image
I have written about this image many times. It is the first image I produced in this style. I first shot it in March 2020, but it didn’t feel complete until I printed it in January 2022. I had to figure out how to capture the emotion of that moment—when I first saw her.
She was just a young girl, lost in her music, playing her cello on a quiet street corner in the French Quarter. Her clothes were worn, much like the cello she cradled, but the way her fingers moved along the strings—so full of focus—made everything else disappear. The melodies she drew from that old instrument seemed to pulse with the soul of the city, filling the air with a haunting beauty.
It was as if the music itself had painted the scene around her, turning the ordinary into something extraordinary. In that moment, you could feel the essence of New Orleans—where even the most humble street musician could create something transcendent with just a few notes.
My Process
For me, a photograph goes through five distinct stages. It starts with the raw scene in front of me, just as it exists. Then, I experience it through the lens, where the composition begins to take shape. Next, I see it on my monitor as I start the editing process and my vision for the image begins to evolve further. Once printed, the photograph takes on yet another dimension, one that is different from the digital version. Finally, there's the image in my mind's eye, the one I envisioned when I pressed the shutter. None of these steps exactly replicate the original moment, but my goal is always to get the final print as close as possible to that feeling—not necessarily how I saw it, but how I dreamed it.
I am constantly inspired by the beauty and complexity of the world around me. I strive to capture the essence of my subjects, whether they are people, places, or things. My aim is to convey their unique character through my images, as I believe that photography has the power to reveal stories, evoke emotions, and connect us to one another.
When describing my process, I say, “The camera doesn’t see what the eye sees, but I feel compelled to take certain photographs. My hope is to impress a fingerprint of the image’s soul in the viewer’s mind. If that connection is made, then they will understand why I had the urge to press the shutter.”
But here’s the thing: printing the photo doesn’t bring it to life on its own. It’s just a flat, two-dimensional version - a snapshot. What I’m always trying to figure out is how to make the final image carry the same emotional weight as the moment I first saw it.
How do I express in my finished image the emotional impact that made me press the shutter in the first place? The answer is… I don’t know, but here’s my process…
I do an initial basic edit correcting for light, color, brightness, and contrast and then I print it and hang it on the wall outside my office door. I need to look at it and decide what I want to do with it. Sometimes, it stays there for an hour, sometimes a week, and sometimes even longer. After further edits it goes back on the wall.
For this particular image, it sat for nearly two years before I felt it was close to what I wanted to express.
My process is slow, reflective, constantly changing — always looking for the version where the image finally matches what I experienced when I first saw it.
Before & After
Amid the chaos and distractions, I had to look beyond the surface to find the beauty I saw in my mind’s eye. What began as a scene of disorder transformed into a fleeting moment of grace, hidden beneath the rough edges.
