Judith Joy Ross

I love Judith Joy Ross, she is one of my portrait heroes, her work is empathic is haunting. She really influenced and helped me. With her work I understood how nuanced portrait compositions could be and how to connect with the person being photographed and the viewer.

She in turn was influenced by August Sander and this tradition is clearly visible in her work. Working with a large 8x10 camera, what regularly struck me were the spontaneous and fluid compositions she managed to achieve while wielding such as large camera.

If you enjoy her work, check out the beautiful photographs by Alys Tomlinson.

Key works

Eurana Park, Weatherly, Pennsylvania (1982): A series of portraits of children and adults at a public swimming pool, capturing their expressions of joy, boredom, curiosity, and vulnerability2.

Portraits of the United States Congress (1986-1987): A collection of 101 portraits of senators and representatives, taken with a large-format camera in their offices, revealing their personalities and power dynamics3.

Portraits of the Hazleton Public Schools (1992-1994): A project that revisits the schools that Ross attended in her hometown, depicting the students and teachers in their classrooms, hallways, and playgrounds.

Protest the War (2006-2007): A series of portraits of people who participated in anti-war demonstrations in Washington, D.C., showing their faces of anger, sadness, hope, and defiance.

Quotes

“I believe they’re not my pictures. They’re pictures that work, that I’ve had a hand in making. They’re pictures of those people. I know how crazy that is… I actually believe they’re of those people. Which is completely not true. Those people are far more complex than anything I showed you. It’s just one little second of their life and they went on to live their lives. It’s a funny kind of arrogance. What you see is so important that, maybe for me I think it’s the truth. It’s ‘a’ truth…” — Judith Joy Ross

“For me, making a photograph is tactile,” she says. “It’s sensual. I find the beauty that lies in the ordinary circumstances of the everyday. I don’t transform that ordinariness, though. I record it.” — Judith Joy Ross

Referring to photographing people, “Both of us are together and together we're making a picture, they're giving me I'm getting. I'm encouraging them, they give me more. We both might be actually in love for a few seconds.” — Judith Joy Ross

Gregory Halpern referred to her as, “the greatest portrait photographer to have ever worked in the medium.”