bio

Ross Taylor is a staff photographer for The Virginian-Pilot, and is a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate.

Taylor was named the 2007 Region 1 (New England) Photographer of the Year and is a two-time Photographer of the Year (NC) whose work has appeared on the cover of the National Press Photographers Best of Photojournalism magazine. He has won numerous international, national and regional awards as well as one of the Associated Press Photos of the Century awards.

Along the way, he has rambled across America, photographed in a Central American jail and received the Heimlich maneuver in a Tennessee Taco Bell.

Throughout his travels and work, Taylor has called a variety of places home - a walk-in closet, a storage space under a staircase, three attics, a couch in Central Appalachia and the back of a Nissan truck.

Taylor has hugged the Taj Mahal, kissed a 70-year-old woman on Bourbon Street, and swallowed fire at a Coney Island Side Show class.

He has been attacked by two angry mobs, several monkeys and one terrible virus in India.

Taylor skinny dipped in more than 20 states and was once stung by a jellyfish in the process. Taylor also accidently maced himself once he's not sure which was more painful.

In between shooting and thinking about photography, he reminisces about the glory days of foosball in Chapel Hill and a childhood filled with kickball, school pizza and chocolate milk.