To photograph storm-tossed waves during a hurricane, Clifford Ross went into the surf himself, deploying a wetsuit, flotation vest, and a rope that tethered him to his assistant back on the beach. The result is a series of stunningly dramatic black and white photographs.
The photographs show waves arrested in mid-air but roiling with movement, offering a distorted mirror of the clouds above them, shooting up in an explosion of foam, folding in on themselves, rising tall as a waterfall. We know that the photographer is imbedded in their fury, but in the photographs there is no sign of any human presence. These astonishing images affirm Ross's commitment to the expressive powers of realism as well as to the most advanced possibilities of technology.

The series was originally photographed from 1996 to 2001 and was then extended by Ross in 2008, when he chose to capture the imagery with a digital camera instead of film. All the waves in the series were generated by hurricanes. Among his influences is J. M. W. Turner, with whom Ross shares a fascination with the violence of the sea. His drive to share the power of ocean waves with the viewer is not limited to his extreme efforts in capturing the image, but is central to Ross's obsessive and innovative printing methods as well. He spent a decade in the darkroom printing silver gelatin prints, and since 2009 has printed on wood veneer, pushing the photographic medium past its existing limits. He is known for his efforts to communicate the sublime in the Hurricane series, and in most of his other work as well.

This book collects for the first time the entire “Hurricane Waves” series, presenting black and white tri-tone images of all eighty-four of the “Hurricane Waves” in the series, along with detailed close ups, and historical color images.

This publication accompanied the 2015 exhibition at MASS MoCA.