Judith Joy Ross

Judith Joy Ross is an American portrait photographer. With a old-fashioned 8x10-inch view camera mounted on a tripod, she has created black-white portraits of mostly children, members of congress and war protesters.

 

In a candid conversation with FotoTV, she tells us how she got started with photography after failing at drawing, painting and also art school. She was motivated by the deep perspective she got of people when she viewed them through the lens. She claims to have taken her first good picture after 12 years of graduate school and adds that any photographer out there still waiting for a good break after several years of work, can draw comfort from her first own experience in photography.

 

Her first good pictures were taken at a Park and they resulted from her soul searching. She says she was in a lot mental pain and depression then and tried often to find the larger purpose of life. When she saw some of the kids at the park, she saw her own future in theirs.

Judith adopted August Sander's style of putting people in the centre of the photograph. Once she figured out the kind of light she would use, her own style of photography fell in place and only makes small variations. She often puts some parts of the picture in focus and some other parts, like the background out of focus.

 

She took picture at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and then later took pictures of members of the Congress, who were in fact the people who were responsible for the war. She wanted to photograph people she agreed with and with those she disagreed with to see if her agreement or disagreement helped her produce better photographs.

 

Her project 'Protest the war', was an attempt to capture the people who protested against the Iraq war. Judith was personally opposed to the war and her anger drove that project. This project was special in the sense that it captured the emotions of protesters individually, often in close-ups, as opposed to unmemorable pictures that we commonly see in newspapers - protesters in groups, a 100 feet away from the camera.

 

Judith claims to be an idealist who always hopes to change the world. With regard to her future plans she says she would love to photograph audience and animals.