Clifford Ross, “XLIX”, 2009

#somereallygoodones, #cliffordross, #hurricane, #silver, #alfredstieglitz, #equivalents, #argyrophilic

“Search for wisdom as you would search for silver or hidden treasure” is a contemporary version of Proverbs 2:4, seeking silver and finding enlightenment.

Let us consider silver for a moment. I recognize that within my experience of photography I have been drawn consciously and unconsciously to the quality of silver, even the quantity, in photographs. You begin to recognize that some photography printers have the ability to transcend the silence of a print and summon real music.

There are stories about Stieglitz “Equivalents”, his classic studies of clouds, and his insistence that they could express pure emotion; abstractions that could evoke music. “Through clouds [I wanted] to put down my philosophy of life—to show that my photographs were not due to subject matter—not to special trees, or faces, or interiors, to special privileges, clouds were there for everyone — no tax as yet on them — free.” *1

I couldn’t hear the music; however, I do feel a great printer can render so many notes out of a negative and that music can make me want to dance with a photograph. It fills me and releases me.

As I have gotten older I have found that seascapes provide a great opportunity for a photographer to show their stuff. You as the viewer can let the waves of silvers wash through you. Clifford Ross brings the most ferocity and brilliance to this. Imagine tying a rope around your waist and wading into the breaking surf of an oncoming hurricane with an enormous view camera. Both the feat and photo are breathtaking.

I like the idea that the pre-eminent photo collector Sam Wagstaff after selling off his collection of photographs , started acquiring silver; those objects became his new obsession.

Silver is complicated because there are so many degrees of black and white and gray possibly in the print. Any of the reflective quality has not to do with physical appearance but rather psychically and psychologically. Silver is intense. It absorbs and reflects simultaneously. It can have qualities of being pearlescent or luminescent. Silver also deteriorates and tarnishes into beautiful matrices of metallics.

Argyrophilic: : having an affinity for silver —used of certain cells, structures, or tissues that selectively reduce silver salts to metallic silver *2

I HEARTSILVER.

*1 Alfred Stieglitz, “How I Came to Photograph Clouds,” Amateur Photographer and Photography 56 (1923), reprinted in Richard Whelan, ed., Stieglitz on Photography: His Selected Essays and Notes (Aperture, 2000), p. 237.

*2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/argyrophilic

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