David Ellingsen Photography
Art that speaks to the relationship between humans and the natural world. Focussed on biodiversity l Art Projects
28/02/2024
Thank you Tricia for all your labour through EcoArtSpace to support artists and their work ❤️👍🏻
Posted • Today’s featured artist and ecoartspace member is David Ellingsen and his outdoor temporal photo-based projections.
“A response to a residency theme, “Empty City”, Projections explores the mounting extinction crisis through four species that share our urban spaces. Photographs were made at dusk recording digital light projections of endangered animals and plants, within their native habitats, in the Capital Regional District of Victoria. In an attempt to speak to great and small, the species selected reflect not only those as recognizable as the killer whale, but also the reclusive Barn Owl, the plain Propertius Duskywing moth and the little-known plant Footsteps of Spring.”
More on Ellingsens’s photo-based art practice, here: www.davidellingsen.com
30/11/2023
Today, Nov 30th, is the International Day for Lost Species...a day that will only gain in recognition in the coming years.
This is a new work for the archival project "Days of Plenty; An Archive of Abundance" that compiles hundreds of appropriated photographs into collage works reflecting on human relationship with the living world.
'Untitled'
2023
Pigment ink on cotton rag
20x16 inches
The three original photographs feature passenger pigeons and the thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger - both of course now long extinct.
These days, branches of the Tree of Life are being cut from the trunk by our hand at an ever increasing rate…a moral weight I find almost unbearable some days.
Used with permission and generously provided by:
The Smithsonian Institution
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Bentley Historical Library, U of Michigan
.chi
21/11/2023
Cheers for all the ways you support photography in this wonderful, terrible world.
❤️✌🏻
Posted • We're enjoying the work of Critical Mass 2023 Top 50 Finalist David Ellingsen today. Congratulations !
Statement:
Speaking through photographic history, this project compiles hundreds of appropriated images into collage works reflecting human relationships with the living world. At a time when a re-framing of this relationship is urgently called for, these often disturbing works employ extraction as a metaphor for the wider story of our attempts of dominion over the natural world. Emerging from my family’s history as colonial settlers working in extractive industries in British Columbia from 1887 to today and continuing with photographs collected from around the world, I intend to engage with questions around new paths of relation with the other-than-human.
01/11/2023
Countdown is on for The Toast, the annual fundraising event from Colorado's Center for Fine Art Photography.
View through the link
The items in the auction begin to close on Thursday, November 2, at 6 p.m. Mountain Time (5 p.m. PT and 8 p.m. ET) and close sequentially every three minutes. Watch your faves disappear!
This very first print from the new Days of Plenty project is in the running along with some pretty great offerings for anyone interested in photography.
Items up for auction include:
Professional development sessions with Douglas Beasley, Kellye Eisworth, Charles Guice, Craig Alan Huber, Eric Joseph, Geoffrey Koslov, Elizabeth Cheng Krist, J. Sybylla Smith, Aline Smithson, Susan Spiritus, Mary Virginia Swanson, and Barbara Tannenbaum.
Artwork by Marisa Brown, Kimberly Chiaris, Mark Citret, David Ellingsen, Susan Goldstein, Adriene Hughes, Kei Ito, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Robert Langham III, Roman Loranc, Denis Roussel, and Melanie Walker.
Books by Trent Davis Bailey, Louise Baring, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Eggleston, Douglass Fogle, Jeffrey Fraenkel, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Ralph Gibson, Wayne Gudmunson, Michael Kenna, Hiroh Kikai, Anthony W. Lee, Neil Leifer, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Don Normark, Paul Outerbridge, Irving Penn, Robert A. Sobieszek, Maren Stange, Louis Stettner, Kim Stringfellow, and John Taylor.
12/10/2023
One of the new works from Days of Plenty, "The Gathering", appears in a fundraising auction this month at Colorado's Center for Fine Art Photography. Steered by the wonderful Hamidah Glasgow, and highlighting the photographic medium locally, nationally and internationally, the funds raised support their 2024 programming.
The Toast 2023 auction is now online. Head over to and follow the link in bio. Prints by Denis Roussel
and Roman Loric, photo books by Michael Kenna and Irving Penn, and professional development sessions with Barbara Tannenbaum and Charles Guice, to name just a few of the items available.
10/10/2023
A class act.
Just received the catalog from the crew at art auction. Not only the beautifully printed piece but chocolates and a handwritten note from the team, including lovely Director
Head over to their link in bio to get your tickets OR peruse the online auction - your support either way encourages “in all children a love of the arts and to inspire young people to become confident, creative, and compassionate citizens.”
Perhaps more important than ever these days…
Proud to have a tiny part in all this. Cheers Team Splash👍🏻👍🏻
05/10/2023
Nice article on newsletter yesterday covering the release of “Looking at Trees” from the UK’s
Glad that The Last Stand plays a small part 👍🏻along with heavy hitters like and
✌🏻
20/09/2023
A little local love, always the best. Cheers Strathcona Collective Magazine 👍🏻
Posted • The Strathcona Collective, Vol. 7: Featured Artist
David Ellingsen () is an artist whose photo-based work speaks to the relationship between humans and the natural world—predominantly through long-term projects that focus on climate, biodiversity, and the forest.
Over the years, his work has employed a wide range of innovative image-making techniques. The Anthropocene project (the skulls) uses a technique known as ‘focus stacking’ where multiple photographs, all with different zones of critical focus, are layered together, revealing only each one’s sharp area in the final image. The result, previously unachievable in the days of film photography, is a tack-sharp image, often slightly surreal in the final print.
Read more at the link in bio.
17/09/2023
Five photographs from The Last Stand find another new home thanks to the good folks at Hoxton Mini Press. In "Looking at Trees" I join 23 other artists in this new book about to release.
Tap the link in bio, and then to News section, to view/order.
"We all walk past trees every day. But do we really stop and look?
This book brings together the world’s best contemporary photography of trees, encouraging us to reconsider the wisdom of these ancient, life-sustaining plants at a time when our relationship with nature is, perhaps, at it's most strained. With text by Sophie Howarth.
Featuring: Paul Hart, David Spero, Sue Bailey, Marc Alcock, Yoshinori Mizutani, Anna Beeke, Daniel Ballesteros, Myoung Ho Lee, Marc Wendelski, Sabine Bungert and Stefan Dolfen, Richard Mosse, Beth Moon, David Ellingsen, Christoph Franke, Giorgio Majno and Oddina Pittatore, J. John Priola, Nicholas JR White, Carolyn Monastra, Leticia Valverdes, M’hammed Kilito, Robert Voit, Olivia Lavergne, Alexandre Miguel Maia and Einar Örn."
Looking at Trees
Pre-orders will ship the week of 2 October
Written by Sophie Howarth
Hardback, 224 pages, 237 x 285mm
£35
15/09/2023
Today…
Posted • It has started 💪🏽
🔥 650 actions, from 3800+ organisations, across 60 countries on every continent🔥
Wherever you are, you can JOIN US in our fight to ✊🏽🌎
https://fightfossilfuels.net
07/09/2023
Cheers 😎
Posted • Today we present two works by David Ellingsen, a recipient of Hamidah Glasgow’s honorable mention in our Center Forward 2023 exhibition. Ellingsen’s images “Flight” and “The Last Buffalo” reflect on the history of human interaction with the natural world.
Recalling his own family history of colonial settlement in 1887 British Columbia, Ellingsen began to explore this complicated past and how it has manifested in our present, highlighting themes of consumption and sovereignty.
Using archival imagery from institutions around the world, Ellingsen creates thought-provoking collages that highlight the abuse of the non-human world at the hands of the human one, often as a result of colonialism and extractive practices. His images explore the ways that humans seek to dominate the natural world, and the devastating impacts this has on climate and wildlife preservation.
To view our Center Forward exhibition, visit our link in bio.
29/08/2023
Well, some nice rainy afternoon news…two works from the new project Days of Plenty appear, in wonderful company, in the group exhibition Center Forward 2023 from Colorado’s Center for Fine Art Photography.
Link in bio, mine or , for details.
Posted • Announcing the exhibiting artists for "Center Forward 2023"!
Hamidah Glasgow Juror Award: Muneb Nassar
Charles Guice Juror Award: Filippo Barbero
Hamidah Glasgow Honorable Mentions: Debra Achen, Mona Bozorgi, David Ellingsen, Susan Goldstein, Michele Lyn, Susan Rosenberg Jones, Dean Terasaki
Charles Guice Honorable Mentions: Mona Bozorgi, Mehreen Khalid, Denise Laurinautis, Michele Lyn, Muneb Nassar, Susan Rosenburg Jones
Selected Artists:
Debra Achen, Geoffrey Agrons, Ashley Allen, Laurel Anderson, Filippo Barbero, Nancy Baron, Tabea Borchardt, Mona Bozorgi, Marisa Brown, Tuan Bui, Tracy Burke, Patty Carroll, Anahit Cass, Alex Cassetti, Madeline Cawkins, Jo Ann Chaus, Patricia Christakos, Matthew Conboy, Seth Cook, Jesse Egner, David Ellingsen, Dan Florin, Patricia Fortlage, Debora Francis, Susan Goldstein, Charlotta Hauksdottir, Austin Jensen, Luke Jordan, Richard K. Kent, Mehreen Khalid, Frazier King, Sandra Klein, Gershon Kreimer, Judy Labib, Susan Lapides, Denise Laurinaitis, Ana Leal, Traci Marie Lee, Drew Leventhal, Michele Lyn, Mara Magyarosi-Laytner, Lawrence Manning, Christina McFaul, Jason McKinsey, dee (darren lee) miller, Greer Muldowney, Muneb Nassar, Robin North, Eleanor Oakes, Laurie Peek, Oriana Poindexter, Austin Pope, Nathan Rochefort, Gjert Rognli, Susan Rosenberg Jones, Angela Scardigno, Rebecca Sexton Larson, Anastasia Sierra, Olga Steinepreis, Jerry Takigawa, Dean Terasaki, Anne Vetter, Suzanne Theodora White, and Michael Young.
Congratulations to all our exhibiting artists!
View the exhibition through our link in bio.
Image ©️ Michele Lyn
21/08/2023
The biodiversity project "Life As We've Known It" finds a new home with art2art, a company based in Michigan circulating travelling exhibitions to museums and public galleries.
It will keep company with wonderfully diverse exhibition offerings from Edward Curtis and Dorothea Lange through to Pete Souza's White House work and "PULSE Nightclub: 49 Elegies".
14/08/2023
A new project makes the cut for Photolucida’s 2023 Critical Mass finalists.
And a shoutout to fellow BC artist for CM feature image and self portrait project. Excellent.
My series, Days of Plenty: An Archive of Abundance, will be released in its entirety this fall. A few teasers are on my website- link in bio.
Posted • Yes, it's true - The 2023 Critical Mass Finalists have been announced! We are thrilled to introduce you to some incredible photographers (both Finalists and merit-based Scholarship recipients) - the link to the list is in our bio! These artists will move forward to the next phase of Critical Mass, to have their work juried by 150+ international jurors, and considered for the many awards we have in the works!
Congratulations Finalists and thank you to everyone who entered this year!
Thank you as well to our hard-working pre-screening team who considered and voted on each body of work that was submitted! We appreciate the time and talent of Allison Stewart, Brittani Taylor, Draženka Jalšić Ernečić, Elizabeth Avedon, Helen Trompeteler, Julian Lucas, Molly Roberts, Lia J. Latty, Peter M. Krask, Sarah Leen, Federico Estol, Tiffany Jones, and Polly Gaillard! 🌟
taylorr
Image by 2023 Critical Mass finalist Lindsay Siu
09/08/2023
If you find yourself in Victoria, drop by Madrona Gallery to see work from Wildfire.
Posted • This new arrival comes from David Ellingsen's Wildfire Series. This is a cumulative project created over the span of months and years that looks at contemporary issues like the current climate crisis. Ellingsen's striking photography combines beautifully put together shots with a stark truth, making viewers stop and reassess.
Image: David Ellingsen, Descent to Dark No. 2, 30 x 45 Inches, Digital Photograph, Wildfire Series
05/08/2023
Snow in August…😳…see this work in the upcoming Splash auction, with bidding starting September 25.
Posted • DAVID ELLINGSEN
Obsolete Delete, Rotary Dial Telephone, 2015
Acrylic facemount with aluminum backing
36 × 56 in | Ed. 2/5
Donated by the Artist
Courtesy of Kurbatoff Gallery, Vancouver
Estimated market value: $3,650
For more on this artist, visit
Splash Art Auction bidding will open on Monday, September 25 at www.SplashArtAuction.com
Image courtesy of the artist.
Gallery:
31/07/2023
It’s just beginning it’s tour but if you get a chance to see Go Fish I highly recommend it. Stunningly made 17 min doc on the herring runs of the Salish Sea around Hornby Island.
If any artwork can positively influence our response to the climate/biodiversity crisis, this is one.
05/07/2023
A smoky horizon this morning, but still fresh and clear by the water. We’ve been largely untouched by smoke so far this summer. Couldn’t last forever…
30/06/2023
Dear fellow artists. If your work addresses environmental issues do consider joining
“Members include artists, scientists, professionals, students, and advocates sharing resources and supporting each other's work. This is an inclusive, non-competitive collaborative environment where we can imagine and make real a healthy, equitable, resilient future.”
Established in 1999, founder Tricia Watts and her crew have this thing rollin’. Strong community, inspiration, and constant opportunities for collaboration, exhibition and publication.
***bonus*** annual membership is now 50% off through the end of the year
and no, this is not a paid post : )
It’s beyond crisis time. Let’s work together and get this s**t going…
X D
24/06/2023
Cheers David, Gonzaga and the Umbrella Arts Center. Great exhibition!
Posted • Two weeks ago, Concord – where we’re presenting – was shrouded in wildfire smoke which had reached all the way from Canada, from still ongoing catastrophic blazes. The US experienced its worst toxic air pollution in its recent recorded history that week. Smoke from these fires has been observed as far away as Norway.
David Ellingsen, who features alongside Erin Woodbrey in the exhibition section ‘Heat’, photographs skies during such conditions, tracking the movement of the sun obscured by wildfire pollution. His trio of photographs here come from 2018, capturing the skies over British Columbia during a particularly intense period of wildfires.
Woodbrey’s sculptures provide some commentary on the background causes of such extreme fires: the over production and consumption of petroleum products. Coated in ash, these quasi-human forms are based on the shapes of single-use plastics.
Last two days of the exhibition
‘Wildfire’ by
‘The Carrier Bag Series’ by
24/06/2023
❤️
Posted • Queerness is in no way limited to humans, and to celebrate Pride and Oceans Month, here are some of the fabulous rainbow diversity found in our oceans critters! 🌈 Are there any that we missed? Add them in the comments!
Of course, things like sexuality, gender and relationships are human concepts — just like hate, prejudice and LGBTQ+ phobia, ✨which you won’t find any of✨ in animals.
>> LINK IN BIO
23/06/2023
The last weekend for this exhibition. If you’re in the neighborhood, get in there and join the events…Earthwatch founder will be there!!
Posted • .art Sadly, this is the last weekend of . It’s been a brilliant, humbling experience working with and on this show, plus all the incredible artists. We have an exciting lineup for the closing, with a guided tour, film screening, and live discussion with founder Brian Rosborough. Find out more at: theumbrellaarts.org/PoR, where there’s also a link to a virtual 360-tour.
Above: ._.johnson, , , .de.avila.franco, , and .intimacies.
, Concord, MA, USA
More:
12/06/2023
With work more timely than ever, June 25 is the next guided tour if you happen to be in the area. If not head to www.pointsofreturn.org to see all the work.
Posted • Today we’re hosting a set of events in the gallery. If you haven’t already heard about these, check out the ‘Points of Return’ page at theumbrellaarts.org. After this, the next guided tour will be on June 25th, but there is still lots to see between now and then. Our two curated film-reels contain over two hours of digital art, and over 40 physical works are on show in the gallery.
A selection can be seen in the slider above, by: .de.avila.franco, ._.johnson, , .t, , , , , Pieter Colyn, and co-curators , .art.
16/05/2023
These guys! The brains AND brawn behind this exhibition Points of Return - on now at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord MA.
Posted • It’s been an incredible experience working on this exhibition, with an inspiring group of artists. The feedback so far has been really positive. We’ll share more images throughout the show. Some words from gallery director Jerry Wedge below:
“ is incredibly proud to welcome and this wonderful and important exhibition to our Gallery. Transforming conversations around the climate crisis from despair to hope is immensely powerful. ‘Points of Return’ gives us that hope, there is still time to act, and we must.”
Images here:art &
_.johnson
28/04/2023
Points of Return opening next week at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA, running through to June 25.
With the Guardian's report on Wednesday "Record ocean temperatures put Earth in ‘uncharted territory'", this show could not be more timely. Seems like every second climate report speaks of "entering uncharted territory", "beyond our projections", and the like.
“Artists are in a unique position, able to creatively present scientific findings in an accessible manner—inspiring collaboration and communal action. After all, if we are to solve the climate conundrum, we must all contribute.”
- CURATORS; A La Luz, David Cass & Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar Romero
WORK ON SITE
Planetary Intimacies
Felipe de Ávila Franco
David Cass
David Ellingsen
Tanja Geis
Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar Romero
Miguel Jeronimo
Bethany Johnson
Luke Myers
Miguel Sbastida
Adam Sébire
Ulrika Sparre
Erin Woodbrey
WORK ON SCREEN
Collin Bradford
Fiona Carruthers
Pieter Colyn & Emilie Miller
Emilio Fuentes Traverso
Tamara Garcia
Angela Gilmour
Michael Krondl
Justin Levesque
Fae Logie
Tom Rice
Jacinda Russell
Anne-Katrin Spiess
Evalie Wagner
Virginia Woods-Jack
IMAGE CREDITS:
David Ellingsen
MiguelSbastida
Emilie Miller & Pieter Colyn
Angela Gilmour
19/10/2022
Absolutely appalling…
Posted • 1/3. Seen here are shocking new before and after images that expose the ongoing impacts of old-growth logging on Vancouver Island, BC. Captured between 2020-2022 by Ancient Forest Alliance Photographer & Campaigner, , in the Caycuse watershed in Ditidaht territory, the now-familiar scenes feature centuries-old redcedar trees standing and then cut down by Teal-Jones, never to be seen again.
Many of the trees and groves pictured in this latest series were identified as priority ‘big-tree’ old-growth that met the criteria for temporary deferral by the BC government’s independent science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel. In some locations, the forests were logged just months before the recommendations came into effect, while in others, deferrals were not secured in time before logging took place.
In 2021, the provincial government accepted, in principle, the Technical Advisory Panel’s recommendation to defer (pause) logging on 2.6 million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth forests in BC, pending approval from local First Nations. However, more than a year on, less than half of these areas have been secured for deferral and some recommended areas, such as these, continue to be logged, as the province has failed to provide the requisite financing for First Nations needed to enable the full suite of deferrals.
📨 SPEAK UP!! Help us pressure the & to commit at least $300 million in conservation financing for the protection of old-growth forests via link in bio
This photo series was created by with support from the , a grantmaking partnership between the National Geographic and Royal Canadian Geographical Society that supports emerging Canadian explorers, scientists, photographers, geographers, and educators with a goal of using storytelling to ignite “a passion to preserve” in all Canadians.
–
06/10/2022
Jeez - things DO still happen outside of Insta - what?! : )
I had an exhibition back in my hometown (home island?) of Cortes Island this summer, showing the latest project Falling Boundaries. I have shown my work in many places around the world but exhibiting on Cortes remains one of the most satisfying. Within the community where I was raised - one that tenaciously holds in high regard the land itself and the other-than-human entities that share it with us - and which instilled in me some of my most cherished values.
Cortes is known for "being trouble" when it comes to pushing back against logging company local harvesting plans. Good trouble I say!
This project observes, with as much lucidity as I can muster, the relations between the land, our colonial past and resource extraction. Yet another complicated story of so many that I believe must be absorbed with bracing clarity if we have any chance of mitigating our slide towards self-destruction, or simply finding peace and living with moments of hope in the days ahead.
Historical photographs courtesy of the Archives at the Royal British Columbia Museum
03/10/2022
The group exhibition Decade of Change, organized by the British Journal of Photography, moves to the InCadaqués International Photography Festival in the seaside village of Cadaqués, Spain.
The photograph "Southern Resident Killer Whale, Orcinus orca" plays a tiny part in what looks like an beautiful event embedded in a location we would all want to head to : ) No install photos in my pocket but is there and has the goods in their story...
My link-in-bio has a link to the festival site - lots of great work - and alone worth the visit just to see more of Paul Cupido's elegant work .cupido
"For the sixth edition of the festival, InCadaqués invites you to dive into the world of photographic images and its Creators. Throughout ten days, the village will become an open space for the expression of photographers from around the world."
"Initiated by 1854 and British Journal of Photography, Decade of Change is a global photography award and exhibition dedicated to the defining issue of our time: the climate crisis. From humans and wildlife to urban landscapes and ecosystems, the award explores the many facets of climate change: the strength and fragility of the natural world, the collateral effects on communities and individuals in their daily life, and our global efforts to reverse the situation. The two bodies of work and the thirty winning images of this year's Decade of Change focus on the global climate crisis. These photographs offer a powerful and urgent response to the ways our world is changing. This exhibition is the achievement of 25 international artists."
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Our Story
David Ellingsen is a Canadian photographer and conservation artist creating images of site-specific installations, landscapes and object studies that speak to the natural world and human impacts upon it. Using a hybrid of traditional documentary processes, staged constructions, and performance across his projects Ellingsen acts as both archivist and surrealist as he calls attention to the state of the living planet.
Ellingsen began his artistic career studying the craft of photography at a trade institute, through apprenticeships and then working as a freelance editorial and advertising photographer with clients that included the New York Times Magazine, DDB, Mens Journal, CBC Radio Canada, Telus and MTV/Nickelodeon. Simultaneously, Ellingsen was exhibiting personal work within public and private galleries in Canada, the USA, and Asia and appearing as an educator at post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. Ellingsen continued this hybrid path for 12 years and then, in 2013, focused fully on his artistic practice.
Ellingsen’s photographs are part of the permanent collections of museums in China, South Korea and Canada and have been shortlisted for Photolucida's Critical Mass Book Award, awarded First Place at the Prix de la Photographie Paris and the International Photography Awards in Los Angeles.
Ellingsen lives and makes his work in Canada’s Pacific Northwest, moving between Victoria and the remote island of Cortes where he was raised.
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