Like estate sales or cat burglary, Peter Ross’s photographs of William Burroughs’s possessions provide a glimpse into the material world of someone we thought we knew. In the interview below, Ross explains how the pictures (see here for the complete collection) explore the myth of the man through a selection of weird, touching, and often unexpected possessions found in Burroughs’s windowless New York City apartment, preserved since his death in 1997.
Photographer Peter Ross (his series on spiritualists was featured here in January 2008) lives in Brooklyn. He makes photographs, usually portraits, for designers, corporations, agencies, publishers, and for himself.
-> Read the interview with Peter Ross on photographing Mr. Burroughs's stuff.