Richard Ross - Fine Art Photography Gallery

Notes on FLOATS AND WAX MUSEUMS

"I always loved The Twilight Zone—that world between reality and fantasy," says Richard Ross, who is also a great fan of the cinema. "Floats are religious, like movies," he says. "The only difference is that the thirty-foot-tall people in films are made of light, instead of papier-mâché." And like stars of the big screen frozen mid-scene, these characters—the grinning politicians, moping clowns, and snarling monsters that Ross finds in float-building factories and museums around the world—are charismatic even in their stillness.

Ross enjoys the spectacle of parades, but he chooses to document the floats in their off-duty hours. In the warehouses, it's easier to keep living, breathing people from infiltrating the surreal "zone" that seems to exist, bubble-like, around his inanimate subjects. Although workers often mill about while Ross photographs, they seem to understand his reverence for the larger-than-life (and in some cases, eerily lifelike) stars of his photo-dramas. "They don't have to worry that I'll move anything," Ross explains. "I always find things better than what I'd imagined. It would be arrogance to try to out-do what I'm given."