Ross Emerson grew up in a small town in the Niagara region of Ontario Canada where he spent most of his youth outdoors exploring the Niagara Escarpment, wandering the woods and taking in his surroundings of nature and the wildlife hidden within. Later in his years of high school he took up the chance to take a photography course and was handed his father’s old Canon FTb and the spark of interest in the field was set.
Even though aviation is Ross’ main focus in life, his passion for photography never left while he took a course in Sault Ste. Marie at Sault College taking Aircraft Structural Repair. He now resides in London Ontario where he now makes a living in aviation repair but the love of photography has expanded.
As mentioned above, Ross began his photography journey in high school taking a course on photography. That course gave him a foundation of the historical, technical and basic sides of the art. He was also fortunate to have gained friendship with a local artist Rick Manners who specialized in wildlife paintings and photographs.
Although taking the high school course gave Ross a foundation of his photographic knowledge, Rick was able to build upon that base and introduce much more aspects of the art. Being a photographer himself, Rick was able to exchange his knowledge with Ross in teaching him more about the creative sides such as composition and the understanding of lighting, both natural and artificial.
Ross continues to better himself by taking courses and workshops to refresh and learn new skills. He’s taken many courses offered by Henry’s school of imaging leading him to gain the cover image of Photo Ed Magazine winter edition 2012, along with two other images within the edition. More recently he has taken on-line courses and also taken workshops with Ethan Meleg on landscape photography in Ontario. To further his knowledge Ross has also taken a course on Tintype Collodion Wet Plate photography held at the Eastman Kodak museum in Rochester New York USA taught by expert Mark Osterman.
Currently Ross works with digital 35mm cameras along with 35mm, medium and large format film cameras. The choice of format and media that Ross uses depends on his vision of what he’s looking for as an end result of an idea. Ross would like to say that he is one of the few that still loves to challenge himself and shoot with film even in our day and age of digital. History is a big fascination with him and he would like to build upon that with his photography as well, Ross continues to have many ideas surrounding the history of photography.
Ross’s goal is to share the best possible photographs that he can create given the locations he gets to visit and the use of his knowledge and equipment from capture to print. As time goes by his knowledge and skill will forever be growing and he can be assured that his images will continue to grow.
