Judith Joy Ross

I couldn't resist Judith's series taken in Chalfont Pennsylvania.  I guess every now and then you come across a work of art, or works of art that just seem to be made for your personal pleasure.  They speak so much to your life or  past experiences that they make you feel special, or nostalgic, or peaceful, or all three! I felt a little jolt of excitement when I came across this series of photographs.  Like "Hey, that's me!  I've lived that! That's a special experience that I know about!"

Children in Neshaminy Creek, Wildlife Camp, The Aark Foundation Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, Chalfont, Pennsylvania, 2011 Archival pigment print mounted to board 32 × 39 ^3/4 in

Iliana and Claire, Wildlife Camp, The Aark Foundation Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, Chalfont, Pennsylvania, 2011 Archival pigment print 30 × 24 in

Corey with Bunny Wildlife Camp, The Aark Foundation Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, Chalfont, Pennsylvania, 2011 Archival pigment print. 24 x 19 in

No, I have never been to this particular wildlife camp, but as a child I spent a lot of my summers back East in Pennsylvania, or in the "God's country" that is southern Illinois.  I have spent quite a few hours exploring Pennsylvania creek beds.  I know that flat, shaley rock, and I know the little, black, squirming salamanders that those kids are finding.  I know the small town girls who spend their summers barefoot in bathing suits migrating from one swimming pool or pond to the next.  Put a squirming, feral barnyard kitten in place of that bunny, and it might as well be my little cousin on the farm twelve years ago. Oh, how it makes me long for the goodness of childhood, small towns, and deep hardwood forests!  Good on ya Judith Ross for capturing a childhood, a small-town-America ideal, a memory that is slipping, a reality that can never be again.

Ross, Born in Hazletown Pennsylvania in 1946, is known mostly as a portrait photographer.  Her work is appreciated for its emotional acuteness, and it ability to convey the humanity and vulnerability of the subject(s).   Ross is also known for her use of an antiquated 8 x 10 in camera that produces 8 x 10 paper prints. Her resulting work is reminiscent of 20th century photographers.  She has been described as "an exemplar of classic photographic portraiture"