DAVID ELLIS is an accomplished photographer and film-maker and has worked with alternative capture for the last 10 years. His education includes the Art Institute of Boston, the University of Mexico National Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Students League of New York (Sound of Shape and Design Project). His current work is the exploration of alternative image-capture techniques such as pinhole photography, Polaroid, vintage box cameras and experimental video and pinhole video. He has taught photography at Rhode Island School of Design and has lectured and conducted workshops at numerous locations that include Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, As220 Providence RI, Cambridge Art Association and also works as a freelance editorial and documentary photographer. He has been the recipient of various grants and awards including the National Endowment for the Arts, the University of Texas Hogg Foundation, the State of New Mexico AIPP, and the City of Austin, TX. He has exhibited widely and his work is held in many public, private, corporate and notable museum collections, including the Getty Collection, Los Angeles, the City of Austin, TX, the State of New Mexico, the National Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico City, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Patzcuaro, Mexico and he was selected for the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Artists, Washington DC.
ARTIST STATEMENT--THE ESSENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
I see the photograph as an artifact, a record of an experience where, the process of recording the moment is at-the-same-time the creation of the moment. This process is the documentation of my presence in the experience as much as it is of the image that is recorded. Following that first glimpse or impulse intuitively, in response to the something-about-this quality of a moment, it is an attempt to discover the magical and mysterious in the ordinary. The essence or poetics of an image is what I seek to reveal. In this search for essence, the use of pinhole or low-tech cameras constructed from tins and containers or an assortment of converted, adapted or retrofitted vintage, Polaroid, digital or video cameras further enhances the spirit, beauty and chanciness captured in the image. In the end, each camera is a tool leaving its own mark by capturing and defining images with its quirks, technology, chemistry, processor or just plain simplicity. Every image is a product of the tool used to capture it and of one's vision, memory and, of course, chance. Associations created by engagement with the image will be different for each of us and it is ultimately the essence revealed that will be the measure of strength and power in the connection as viewers.
-David Ellis-