MASTER OF SHADOWS

Great photography can be magical when the artist creates a sense of wonder through a unique pairing of vision and technique. Harold Ross is just such a photographer.

Ross is a light painter. It’s a simple technique that requires no specialized equipment beyond the ability to open a camera’s shutter in total darkness and wield a light source to paint the subject with illumination. The resulting images are incredible, with an ethereal, painterly quality quite unlike anything accomplished by traditional lighting methods. And with a photographer as skilled as Ross, the subtlety and nuance in the light are captivating.

A onetime commercial photographer, Ross began experimenting with light painting in order to find more creative freedom. It was so freeing that he eventually left commercial work in favor of fine art.

“Thirty years ago, when I was a commercial photographer using strobe equipment,” Ross says, “I felt that I didn’t really have a ton