David Ellis Images
Seeing The Extraordinary
In The Ordinary
A collection of photographs and mixed media works by photographer/filmmaker David Ellis.
There really is no “ordinary”.
When we look closely, we can often see the extraordinary in what appears to be an everyday object, place, or even a moment viewed from a train window as it speeds along the rails.
It is all about “seeing”, which is deeper than just “looking”. It is about taking the time to actually “see” the magic that is in things and moments all around us, all the time.
I use many “photographic tools”;
Phone cameras, antique box cameras (from early in the last century, that STILL function with 120 roll film or as pinhole adapted cameras), Polaroid cameras, vintage super-8 film cameras and video cameras.
I construct my own cameras from tin containers or retrofitted hybrid cameras made by attaching box cameras to vintage Polaroid cameras,creating what is called “pinhole” or stenopeic photos, in which there is NO lens at all, but just a very thin sheet of metal with a tiny pin sized hole as an aperture, that allows light to enter, creating an image on photo-sensitive paper or film inside the camera.
My images capture the extraordinary in the simplest of subjects or fleeting moments and the experience of discovery and experimentation is equally extraordinary, exciting, and all magical…always full of surprises!
Thank you for viewing my work. I hope you enjoy the experience
as much as I enjoy creating it!
(PLEASE CONTINUE SCROLLING DOWN FOR PORTFOLIOS OF IMAGES)
David Ellis
Pézenas, France
David Ellis
Award winning filmmaker
A brief bio and director's statement:
Exploring a new digital avant-garde.
Award winning director David Ellis has emerged notably at the forefront of a new wave of experimental film making. With a fiercely original, distinctive and visionary style of movie making, his works are a personal cinema where traditional storytelling is redefined through the absence of dialogue or defined narrative. In this non-traditional storytelling portrayal, the interplay of image, sound and atmosphere leaves the viewer to create their own narrative in a cinema created as pure visual poetry without the burden of narrative or the limitation of language, intended to be responded to as pure art of moving image and sound. In his exploratory approach to film making, moving pictures no longer need to “make sense” as viewers form their own stories. As a filmmaker, he is influenced by Zen Buddhism and by early 20th century experimental avant-garde films by artists such as Fernand Leger, Man Ray,Viking Eggleling, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttman and others. His recent works employ influences from cubism, and Russian Constructivist & Suprematist works by such artists as Rodchenko, Malevich and Lyubov Popova, by employing the design elements as a pure graphic art form without the propaganda.While avant-garde in the same spirit as those early film pioneers, the work is non-narrative in the traditional sense, exploring the moving image, and the inter-dependency of the movement, timing, structure and evolution of the image on the screen with similar qualities in the sound that accompanies it.These works utilize this relationship of sound and image so that the sound is not simply a “cue” to “ready” the audience’s responses to the film. Audio is no longer background to fill an empty space around the visuals, but is on an equal trajectory with the image as an essential component.
Film Festivals & Awards
2022 - AIDFF Athens Int. Digital Film Festival -Long Departure
2021 - OneTakeFilmFestival,Zagreb, Croatia
2021 - Suspaustas Laikas, Vilnius,LT - NO SIGNAL
2019 - New Filmmakers NY - Lamentation For Lost Dreams - 3 Études
2018 - VIFF Vienna Independent Film Festival - Lamentation For Lost Dreams - Three Études
2018 - SENE Film Festival - Providence, RI - Time Retrograde
2017 - SENE Film Festival - Providence, RI - Long Departure
2017 - Open Air Film Festival, Minsk, Belarus - Long Departure
2017 - London International Short Film Festival - Time Retrograde
2017 - Girona Film Festival,SP - Time Retrograde
2017 - Prague Independent Film Festival - Time - Retrograde - Award Best Experimental Film
2017 - Vienna Independent Film Festival - Long Departure & Time-Retrograde
2017 - US Super8 Film & Video Festival - Long Departure - Winner Best Film
2016 - PIFF Prague Independent Film Festival - NO SIGNAL - Winner Best Experimental Short
2016 - Boston Short Film Festival, Boston, MA - Long Departure - Winner Best Experimental Short
2016 - Dallas VideoFest, Dallas, TX - Long Departure
2016 - VIDEOMEDEJA, Novi Sad, Serbia - Long Departure
2016 - Cannes Short Film Festival, Nice, FR- NO SIGNAL
2016 - Blow-Up Arthouse Film Festival, Chicago - UHF
2016 - Experimental Superstars Film Festival, Novi Sad,Serbia - XdubX
2016 - SENE Film Festival, Providence,RI,USA - NO SIGNAL - Audience Award
2016 - U.S. Super 8 Film & Video Festival - NO SIGNAL - Honorable Mention
2016 - Manchester International Film Festival,UK - XdubX
2015 - 401 Film Festival, Providence, RI - UHF
2015 - New Jersey International Film Festival - U H F- Honorable Mention
2015 - Festival Parachute Light Zero, Paris, France - U H F
2015 - HANGAR Centre de Producció, Barcelona,SP - Solo screening
2014 - LIVEMEDIA- Webcast interview & screening - Palabras Perdidas - Barcelona, SP
2014 - HANGAR Centre de Producció, Barcelona, SP - Awarded 3 month filmmaker residency.
2014 - VIDEOFORMES International Digital Arts Film Festival,Clermont-Ferrand, FR - U H F
2013 - RhodyWood Indie Film Makers, Providence, RI
2012 - Gallery Eva, Provincetown, MA. - Selected Shorts
2012 - Indie Fest, La Jolla, CA. Award of Merit - FLASH-FILMS
2012 - Atlanta Shorts Fest, Atlanta GA. - FLASH-FILMS
2012 - Oak Cliff Film Festival, Dallas TX. - FLASH-FILMS
2011 - Provincetown Int. Film Festival, US - NEON
2010 - BAC-11 Festival, Barcelona, Spain - NEON
2010 - DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA - FLASH-FILMS
Profound Lucidity
The Inner Life of Objects
Mono-No-Aware - The Pathos In Things
My work explores the Japanese concept of "Mono-No-Aware", meaning, "the pathos in things". It can be an object or a moment when I feel an inexplicable essence that compels me to capture it in photo or film. The power is in its mystery. Presence-in- Absence, where a human interaction is implied. A chair waits. A coffee pot knows stories! Two trees in a fleeting instant as a train flies past speak to me. I listen and shoot.
Choses Quotidiennes
Photographs of Everyday Things
The Japanese concepts of “mono-no-aware” (the pathos in things) along with the connection between people and things, has long attracted and fascinated me. In my images, the objects wait silently, each with its own inner life and implication.
“Choses Quotidiennes”, or everyday things, is a photographic project depicting the extraordinary in the ordinary, by capturing the essence of the subjects’ inner fixed lives.
Photographies d'objets du Quotidien
Les concepts japonais de “mono-no-aware”, (le pathos dans les choses) et “ma”, (l’espace vide autour ou à l’intérieur des choses qui les rend utiles) avec l’interconnexion entre les gens et les choses, m’ont toujours attiré et fasciné. Dans mes images, les objets attendent silencieusement, chacun avec sa propre vie et implication.
"Choses Quotidiennes”, est une collection de photos illustrant l’extraordinaire dans l’ordinaire, en capturant l’essence de la vie intérieure fixe des sujets.
David Ellis - Pézenas, France
Pinhole Photographs
from Tin Containers
I have been experimenting shooting pinhole photographs over the last 25 years, by constructing my own pinhole cameras from tin containers, or by adapting vintage cameras and video cameras,by replacing the traditional glass lens with a thin strip cut from an aluminum pie plate, that has been pierced with a pin, creating a tiny aperture that allows the light and image to enter, exposing the photosensitive paper or film inside the camera or container.
Polaroid Pinholes
I have been experimenting for some time, shooting pinhole photographs using converted 1960's pack film Polaroid cameras.
Some I have removed the lens from, and replaced it with a thin sheet of aluminum pie plate with a tiny
hole created by piercing the metal with a pin. I rig the Polaroid camera shutter lever to open and close manually,
as I count the seconds for exposure. Polaroid development times vary greatly depending on the film type.
HYBRID cameras, I construct by using an early 20th century "back loading" box camera, that I remove the back door from to attach to a 1960's Polaroid pack film camera that I remove the bellows from. The box camera is then attached to the Polaroid "bellows-less" camera. The bulb setting lever of the box camera is perfect for the longer exposures required. The simple glass box camera lens, when left intact under the strip of aluminum with the pinhole, creates Polaroid images that are soft and often very dreamy. The images can be equally dreamy, or at times sharp, when the lens is removed and replaced by the pinhole metal strip as the aperture.
Hybrid Cameras
Early 20th c. back-loading box camera attached to 1960's Polaroid cameras,a pinhole adapted Polaroid 210 camera with its lens replaced by a pinhole strip and an early 20th c. box camera with Polaroid back attached.
Hybrid Cameras
These cameras create very soft images on Polaroid pack film due to the pinhole pierced aluminum pie plate strip replacing the simple glass box cam lens. The box camera "bulb" setting lever is perfect for the often long exposures
Pinhole Video
Still Frames
I began experimenting with the idea of converting or adapting video camera to shoot in pinhole. Most of the images here were captured using (now out of production) one-time-use pocket video recorders and the same pocket recorder that had a flip out USB for downloading the videos. As the lens was attached to the chip in the camera, making it almost impossible to remove, I attached a thin strip of aluminum pie plate over the lens with a tiny pin pierced hole in it as the new aperture. The chip in the camera was not created for this strange light source, and it recorded the images in a very soft and painterly fashion. I LOVE the results!
Providence Rhode Island
Images
I lived and worked in Providence, Rhode Island, USA for many years.
I was a photography professor at Rhode Island School of Design for 5 years as well as an editorial photographer for Providence Monthly and East Side Monthly magazines during those years. I was also a photographer for The State of Rhode Island documenting historic sites that were endangered by highway and rail projects. I was selected several years in a row by the Providence Preservation Society along with other notable RI photographers to document endangered architecture for its 10 Most Endangered Historic Buildings survey. Many of the images here are from that survey, where I chose to document buildings in unconventional ways. I used large metal trash cans fashioned into large pinhole cameras, for The Eddy Street Church (which was destroyed not long after my documentation).
I chose pinhole altered vintage Polaroid cameras and other pinhole cameras to document The Teste Block in Downcity Providence. I have a large archive recording Providence, in pinholes, video, digital and cell phone images, too numerous to publish here.
I hope you enjoy this small selection.
Boxcamera Pinhole Photos
Here are images captured using vintage box cameras that have been converted or adapted to pinhole. Through the years I have shot many pinhole photos with my assortment of box cameras, using either medium format 120 film (which is still available) or Ilford RC matte paper to capture images as paper negatives to contact print in the darkroom. The bulb setting lever on the box camera is ideal for the longer exposures needed for pinhole capture. I often remove the simple glass lens and replace it with a thin strip of aluminum pie plate pierced with a glass head pin to create the aperture where light enters and exposes the photo sensitive surface inside, creating the negative to print from.
( The photo to the right is of me with one of my box cameras in my Pézenas, France atelier ).
Still Frames From Video & Super 8 Film
Over the years I have shot many videos and super 8 films and screened many experimental films at festivals. I am especially fascinated by shooting film and video from a moving train as well as in the streets. Film is shot at 18 fps usually and video at around 30 frames per second.
In this time continuum that is captured, there are many instants that pass unnoticed by our eyes. I love to review the images frame by frame to discover what surprises lie within, then extract and print them out as still photos. Here are a few of my favorite still frames.
Mixed Media Work
My mixed media works are a combination of collaged vintage photographs, walnut ink drawing and gouache combined with string, fabric, sticks or straw and paper ephemera. They are mounted on vintage book cover boards from old books found at local flea markets and in junk shops.
For the ink drawings in these current mixed media works, I carve my own wooden pens from dry tree branches found on hikes.
I also prepared my own walnut ink, that I draw with, from green walnut husks found discarded at a walnut farm on the route to Chambery,FR.
