Elliot Ross – Crows Ascending

Review by Paul Anderson •

Remembrance, ephemerality and transitions are what come to mind when looking through this beautifully executed photography book by Elliot Ross. The enigmatic objects that are central to all these images are crows. The monochromatic images are elegant, have simple compositions, and gracefully employ motion blur that imparts a spiritual feeling to the flight of these intelligent beings.

Elliot Ross created these haunting images as a memorial to his younger brother Michael, who had a history of epilepsy, Covid-19, and Parkinson’s-related pneumonia. Michael died in 2020. In addition, the photographer dedicated the book to those in the United States who suffered and died from Covid-19.

It is meditative, and many metaphors can be attributed to these images. One of the more obvious, as suggested by the introductory text, is to view them as souls journeying from this existence to the next. The black bodies with gray surrounds are shown against a white background, implying movement to a higher plane – dark black indicating a presence in this world, light grays suggesting transition to another existence. The heads and especially the eyes of the birds are not well defined, rendering them anonymous. They are everyman, moving between realms. Another interpretation might be escape – from day-to-day stresses and distractions, or from earthly constraints.

This author’s favorite two images are very wispy flying shapes, each an isolated bird, that appear on opposing pages. They are wonderfully simple abstractions that are more like threads of vapor or smoke, phantoms in flight. They are included as a part of the sample interior photos at the end of the review.

This is a small and well-made art book, and it’s perfectly sized for the material. The images are nicely sequenced, with crows ascending across the first pages of the book, in full flight in the middle, and alighting at the end. There is a fold-out sheet at the back of the book that repeats all of the images in a matrix format.

This book will be of special interest to fine art black and white photographers.

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Elliot Ross – Crows Ascending

Photographer: Elliot Ross (Born in Chicago, currently divides his time between San Francisco and New York.)

Publisher: Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam, 2023

Text: Elliot Ross

Language: English

Design: Victor Levie, Levievandermeer (Amsterdam)

Hardcover, sewn, with cloth-covered card on both front and back; 23.5 x 26.7 cm;

48 pages with 20 photos in duotone; special fold-out end sheet with all images in smaller size; ISBN 978-90-5330-961-2

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