"Going on to photograph animals from around the world, Ross creates images laden with emotion. He discards their environmental surroundings and uses an almost painterly approach in post-production, leaving us with these beautifully isolated and powerful portraits."

—Aperture
 

"San Francisco photographer Elliot Ross makes the photographing of animals a confrontation with the fundamental questions of existence."

—Anna Gripp
   Photonews (Germany)
 
 
"[A] breath-taking and disturbing series of must-see animal [photographs] by Elliot Ross."

—mcbrooklyn

 

"In Ross's new series [Animal Studies], the animals are often slightly distorted and blurred, they become dynamically abstract and throbbing with energy."

—Sacha Waldron
   Point 102 (UK)
 
 

“Other Animals feels separate to what we’ve seen before. Visually the black and white images paint the subjects in this silver haze, taking them out of their surroundings and habitat and placing them behind a black and white roll of film, we are able to look at animals in another light.

 

We are made aware of the animal conscious in each image with each page turn, and with our eyes catching the glance of the animal, the notion of understanding one another begins to form. 

 

Part of Other Animals' strength is how we react and interact with the images, animals big and small, to wow and intrigue us. It is with this level of intrigue we organise each animal within our heads, which one could be a companion or a threat. Each animal comes towards us from a deep black background.... We are alone with them, isolated in each portrait. Left to look closer, and see if we can draw more from the animal than the judgements and humanisation we place upon them.

 

The gap between the animal and the human is felt within Other Animals, the space allowed on each page around the subjects provides moments of contemplation, and not only of how curious we can be of the natural world, but what part we have to play in this world alongside these animals.”

 


—Harry Rose
   Darwin Magazine (UK)

  
 

"Like Avedon and Penn before him, Mr. Ross removes all background noise, simply by removing all the background. He often does this pixel by pixel, so there is no context...no distractions from locales which would blind us to the presence...the particular nature of these creatures...the elegance of their morphology, the purity of their beings, and even the fun of their fur.

How much can a photograph teach you? In one of my favorites of Ross' deeply felt portraits, we are asked to consider a great white lumpen rabbit. We can really see it now, the rabbity-ness of the rabbit as it carefully, suspiciously eyes you over its shoulder, watching for the slightest aggressive movement. You feel the rabbit seeing you. It is curiously as if you, empathically seeing through those hooded eyes, are, for that moment, the rabbit. It's a wonderful reversal of position, akin to the shock you get from accidentally reversing the way your iPhone's camera is pointing, so that when you hold it up to shoot your subject, you find it's you."

—Alan Klotz
   Alan Klotz Gallery
 

"Ross offers a consideration, privileged by beauty, of the romantic view of the mental life of animals, but not exclusively or conclusively. He merely asks that we contemplate the value of the animal's experience, not just our own. Some animals possess sociability. Some display affection, empathy, grief, envy, hostility and shame. Just because an animal's reasoning is not human-like does not mean it is mindless. Ultimately Ross's portraits offer more that luscious imagery; they offer wonder."


 —Diana L. Daniels
    from the introductory essay to Other Animals
   

"[I] was introduced to Elliot Ross’s animal portraits, and selections from his first series are recent, noteworthy additions to the Crocker’s photography holdings. In Ross’s stirring, seductive, and classic yet fully contemporary images, [I] find a new level of richness that redefines the accomplishment possible in digital photography."

—Diana L. Daniels
   curator of contemporary art
   Crocker Art Museum




"The haunting animal portraits of the American Elliot Ross question our relation to other creatures and the ways we perceive the animal world."

—Manfred Zollner
   fotoMAGAZIN (Germany) 
 
 

"[T]his project is a remarkable and serious analysis of the animal world."

—Denis Brudna
   Photonews (Germany)
 
 

"In their intensity, [Elliot Ross's photographic animal portraits] seem like reflections on the ethical relationship between human and animals."

 —Elke Gruhn and Sara Stehr
    Curators
    Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

   
 

"This book [Animal] is a feast for the eyes and leaves one wondering if those animals contemplate us in the same way."

—Apogee Photo Magazine

 

"The subject of animals is rather popular among photographers, but the overwhelming majority adopts a primitive treatment. Elliot Ross opens up this subject in a way that is not only masterful — he translates it to another qualitative plane."

—Vladimir Neskoromny
   Foto & Video (Moscow)