75 Years of Photography

By Spencer Ross

Immersed in the flourishing Greenwich Village arts scene of the 1950s, Spencer Ross studied photography with some of the most famous mentors of that period. Soon his own work received accolades. U.S. Camera magazine named him one of “the young lions of photography.” His photograph “Street Scene in Siena” is considered by some to be one of the finest street photographs of that era. For the next six decades, Ross traveled the world on business to 130 countries and he always took his camera along. His street scenes and nature photographs from those travels have hung in over 100 museums and galleries including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the IBM Gallery.

In this volume, you can see over 250 of Ross’s arresting images: stunning street photography, memorable portraits of men, women, and children, extraordinary photographs of our natural world, haunting landscapes, and memorable abstracts, accompanied by Ross’s observations about the images, his travels, and the creative process. Ross reflects on the increasing sophistication of cameras from their earliest days to 35mm technology, along with the ubiquity of today’s smartphones and their effect on the photography world. He reminisces about his mentors and significant influences and muses about photography as a fine art. “Though hardly reality itself,” says Ross, “the still photograph has an uncanny ability to preserve an image with an intensity which can equal or even surpass the experience of the moment. A photograph can mystify, elevate, transmute, imbue, and influence. All these possibilities and more are available to those practitioners who maintain an appropriate respect for the potential of this medium and a sufficient knowledge of the craft.” The photographs in this collection do indeed reflect Ross’s aspiration: to create works of lasting value.

As you’ll see in this book, Spencer Ross can tackle a sunset, explore flowers in the field, and come up with beautiful beach scenes, but where do I think he really shines? As a street photographer myself, I cannot help being wowed by many of his street photographs: the kids playing in the streets of Belgium, or his photo of a portrait photographer on the streets of Athens, like a mirror of his eye-to-eye view of the world. An interested and interesting world traveler, he roamed around with his camera in hand before street photography even had a name. This worthy book is filled with Ross's life’s work and it serves photographic history well.

- Ken Farrell

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665742351

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 Spencer Ross.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written

permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed

since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not

necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Interior Image Credit: Spencer Ross

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4233-7 (sc)

            978-1-6657-4234-4 (hc)

         978-1-6657-4235-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907036

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/08/2023

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Spencer Ross

For my grandson,

Andrew Myers Ross

Cover Photo

I laid my camera on the ground to capture this image

of a recently paved and striped road.

near Bozeman, MO (1965)

Table of Contents

The Natural World

Flowers

Trees and Leaves

Water

Winter

Men

Women

Children

Labor

Recreation

Buildings and Structures

Street Scenes

Abstract

Acknowledgments

About The Photographer

Selected Exhibits, Publications and Awards

WE TREAD ON DIAMONDS"

"The still photograph has an uncanny power to preserve a moment with an

intensity which can equal or even surpass the experience of that moment. Hardly

reality, the photograph can mystify, elevate, transmute, imbue and influence.

All that power is available to those practitioners with sufficient knowledge

of the craft, who maintain a respect for the power of this medium and for

the subject matter which is the photographer’s privilege to interpret."

Spencer Ross

Why do you spend so much of your time on photography, asked a friend once, considering that you have never earned a substantial portion of your income from this pursuit? What is it that drives you?

Is it that I often feel my scalp tingle when I believe I have achieved a perfect shot? Is it the fun of gadgeteering (which I confess I have enjoyed since the age of 10, working my way through numerous cameras and lenses and supporting equipment)? Is it ego, hoping to elicit praise from others for the final image? (It’s a great pleasure to be told that you have created something beautiful, or even just nice. Nothing like praise to motivate you, or derision to make you want to give up entirely.) Perhaps it is the desire for immortality, yet that probability is remote, particularly since everlasting quality is currently impossible to guarantee, even while many engaged in this field are hoping that such immortality might someday be achieved.

Is it the desire to impart a special message of some sort to the viewer with the final image? If that is the case, broadcasting the image to as many individuals as possible would be a corollary concern, with credit going to the photographer who not only has something worthwhile or inspirational to say, but who also has developed the best marketing skills for getting the image around.

Does this somehow detract from the work of many thousands of photographers who do good, even great, work, but just keep it to themselves, or certainly haven’t posted it online to be measured by the number of recorded hits? Several centuries ago, the ability to derive stimulus from appreciating the work of others was limited to admiration of the work available in a specific location. Today, through print, radio, television, and the internet, and the ability to travel globally, the range of stimuli available to an individual is enormous. I find this new availability both exciting and discouraging: exciting because of the admiration you can feel for the excellent work you may view … but discouraging if you feel you yourself may not have created work of similar merit!

Is it a desire to share with others the feeling that the photographer may have experienced and been able to preserve in the finished photograph? I would like to think that comes closest to my own personal objective.

Those who pursue the arts can debate forever about what has motivated them. Some may have recognized a talent within themselves which formed the basis for a professional career. Others may have noticed a skill or interest which gives them pleasure and leads to a secondary activity alongside their professional careers. Others may have felt pressure to continue a family tradition.

I tend to believe that the urge to create is a fundamental drive common to homo sapiens … for even in primitive and ancient societies we have evidence of artistic endeavors, from cave drawings to pottery and jewelry. Were those artists endeavoring to leave a legacy for future generations of cave dwellers? I will leave that to the art historians to discuss.

If longevity is important, perhaps the artist should consider sculpture … and in consideration of climate change, ensure the work is placed in a museum safely above the future high-water mark.

As for me, when I wondered about my own motivations and inspiration, I tried to identify the particular Muse of my own preference. I thought of the nine Olympian Muses, daughters of Zeus and inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts … but where was my Muse? There is no mythological Muse for photography, obviously!

So I do not know precisely what has moved me, along with other photographers who share similar interests, to seek those special images which have lasting value, considering the fact that none of these photographs will last as long as cave drawings. The best we can do is to attempt archival quality (a term which is unfortunately quite inexact and to which I shall return).

In this examination of motivation and worthiness, I am excluding the many other photographers who work professionally, who capture exciting and useful images for either commercial or socially significant reasons. Some have been able to combine both sectors, as for example the many photographers for high-quality publications such as National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian, and others, respected publications to which many of the best photographers migrated after the end of the Life and Look eras. Those professionals now produce